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O. Henry uses his unique humorous language to narrate this sad story and makes the readers laugh with tears. At the same time, the readers can understand the philosophy of love and dedication which the author hides in the short story. This short story’s plots and its twist ending are very popular, but we will find its narrative strategy is also very outstanding. 源.自|优尔,-论`文'网www.youerw.com
2. Literature Review
The scholars have studied “The Gift of the Magi” from various aspects. Some scholars paid their attention to the structure of the story. In his book Going in a Maze, Ruan Wenling pointed out that O. Henry made the arrangement of the plot skillfully. The coincidence was clever, reasonable and believable and the thoughtful arrangement depended on the ingenious form of structure. Some others focused on O. Henry’s language and humor. In his article “A Brief Talk on the Artistic Feature of O. Henry’s Short Story”, Li Hong wrote that the art of O. Henry’s language was unique and he was very good at using rhetoric such as exaggeration, irony and so on to describe the characters and the plot. He also thought that the twist plot and the unexpected but reasonable ending made up the O. Henry-style ending. Zhang Lei and Gao Ruoteng thought that O. Henry’s special humor ran through the whole story and it made the readers “laugh with tears”. The characterization of the story also got enough attention. In “The Human Nature in O. Henry’s Short Story”, Li Yanyun and Ouyang Youzhen wrote that O. Henry was able to create characters who lived in the middle and lower level of the American society vividly because of his inpidual experience. He was good at observing life and ordinary people and expressing his own understanding and attitude of humanity and love in his short story. In his thesis “A Study of Metacognition on O. Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’”, Lin Tai’an wrote “The study found that there were two levels for a same thing in O. Henry’s text. One level was an inner-layer story, and the other an external (outer)-layer story. They both constructed a particular twofold spatial for O. Henry’s fiction world.” (Lin Tai’an, 2010: 49)
O. Henry’s writing techniques are so extraordinary that the scholars paid too much attention to them. However, his narrative strategy is also very outstanding. This thesis will discuss the narrative strategy of O. Henry’s short story- “The Gift of the Magi” from the narrative point of view, the narrative speed, the narrative language and the balance between legibility and readability, aiming at providing a new angle for the readers to appreciate O. Henry’s works.