STORY 15: "THE GIFT OF THE MAGI" BY O. HENRY

(Many thanks to our assistant teacher Camilo Montoya for suggesting this story, perfect for Christmas.)


William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American short story writer. His stories are known for their surprise endings.

Porter's most prolific writing period started in 1902, when he moved to New York City to be near his publishers. While there, he wrote 381 short stories. He wrote a story a week for over a year for the New York World Sunday Magazine. His wit, characterization, and plot twists were adored by his readers but often panned by critics.

O. Henry's stories frequently have surprise endings. His stories are also known for witty narration.

Most of O. Henry's stories are set in his own time, the early 20th century. Many take place in New York City and deal for the most part with ordinary people: policemen, waitresses, etc.

O. Henry's work is wide-ranging, and his characters can be found roaming the cattle-lands of Texas, exploring the art of the con-man, or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in turn-of-the-century New York. O. Henry had an inimitable hand for isolating some element of society and describing it with an incredible economy and grace of language. Some of his best and least-known work is contained in Cabbages and Kings, a series of stories each of which explores some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy Central American town, while advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another.

Among his most famous stories is "The Gift of the Magi" we have chosen, and also:

• "The Ransom of Red Chief", in which two men kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy's father $250 to take him back.
• "The Cop and the Anthem" about a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so that he can be a guest of the city jail instead of sleeping out in the cold winter. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and "mashing" with a young prostitute, Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life—and is ironically charged for loitering and sentenced to three months in prison.
• "A Retrieved Reformation", which tells the tale of safecracker Jimmy Valentine, recently freed from prison. He goes to a town bank to case it before he robs it. As he walks to the door, he catches the eye of the banker's beautiful daughter. They immediately fall in love and Valentine decides to give up his criminal career. He moves into the town, taking up the identity of Ralph Spencer, a shoemaker. Just as he is about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank. Jimmy and his fiancée and her family are at the bank, inspecting a new safe when a child accidentally gets locked inside the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine opens the safe to rescue the child. However, much to Valentine's surprise, the lawman denies recognizing him and lets him go.
• "The Duplicity of Hargraves". A short story about a nearly destitute father and daughter's trip to Washington, D.C.
• "The Caballero's Way", in which Porter's most famous character, the Cisco Kid, is introduced. It was first published in 1907 in the July issue of Everybody's Magazine and collected in the book Heart of the West that same year. In later film and TV depictions, the Kid would be portrayed as a dashing adventurer, perhaps skirting the edges of the law, but primarily on the side of the angels. In the original short story, the only story by Porter to feature the character, the Kid is a murderous, ruthless border desperado, whose trail is dogged by a heroic Texas Ranger. The twist ending is, unusually for Porter, tragic.

"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story about a young married couple and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been a popular one for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time. The plot and its twist ending are well-known, and the ending is generally considered an example of comic irony. It was allegedly written at Pete's Tavern^[2] on Irving Place in New York City.

The story was initially published in The New York Sunday World under the title "Gifts of the Magi" on December 10, 1905. It was first published in book form in the O. Henry Anthology The Four Million in April 1906.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._Henry)

STORY 14. "HAPPY ENDINGS" BY MARGARET ATWOOD

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, and environmental activist. She is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Award several times, winning twice. In 2001, she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. She is also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community. Among innumerable contributions to Canadian literature, she was a founding trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize.

She is seen as one of the world’s leading women novelists, for some the best of them all; she has written poetry, novels, criticism and short stories; she campaigns for human rights and for the environment. 

Nonetheless, across the years, certain themes, concerns and ways of writing recur. Amongst other things, Atwood writes about art and its creation, the dangers of ideology, and sexual politics; she deconstructs myths, fairytales and the classics for a new audience. 

"Happy Endings" was first published in a 1983 Canadian collection, Murder in the Dark.^[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood

"Happy Endings" is an example of metafiction. That is, it's a story that comments on the conventions of storytelling and draws attention to itself as a story. At approximately 1,300 words, it's also an example of flash fiction. "Happy Endings" was first published in 1983.

The story is actually six stories in one. Atwood begins by introducing the two main characters, John and Mary, and then offers six different versions -- labeled A through F -- of who they are and what might happen to them.

https://www.thoughtco.com/margaret-atwoods-happy-endings-analysis-2990463

STORY 13: "THE VELDT" BY RAY BRADBURY

Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery fiction author and screenwriter.

Widely known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) as well as his science fiction and horror story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and I Sing the Body Electric (1969), Bradbury was one of the most celebrated 20th- and 21st-century American writers. While most of his best known work is in speculative fiction, he also wrote in other genres, such as the coming-of-age novel Dandelion Wine (1957) or the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992).

Recipient of numerous awards, including a 2007 Pulitzer Citation, Bradbury also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick^[2] and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted to comic book, television and film formats.

On his death in 2012, The New York Times called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury

In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create.

In "The Veldt," a family live in a technologically driven house that will do everything for its inhabitants - transport you upstairs, brush your teeth, cook the food, and clean the house. The nursery, the most expensive and exciting room of the house, is a place where childen can play, but something is going wrong. 

In this dark and troubling story, Bradbury writes a precautionary tale of the advance of technology and the importance of maintaining communication during these technological advances. 

http://www.gradesaver.com/ray-bradbury-short-stories/study-guide/summary-the-veldt

STORY 12. "THE HITCHHIKER" BY ROALD DAHL

We come back to Roald Dahl with the story "The Hitchhiker". It was originally published in the July 1977 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, and later included in Dahl's short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. The story features a man who picks up a hitch-hiker whilst driving to London. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitch-Hiker_(short_story)


For an analysis of the story click HERE

And this is a short film based on "The Hitchhicker"