Although Della sells her hair and Jim sells his watch, the story is really all about Della. Her selling her beautiful hair to buy her husband a Christmas present is what readers will always remember about "The Gift of the Magi." The author remains steadfastly in Della's point of view. Even when Jim sees his wife with nothing left of her hair but pathetic little spit-curls, his reaction is not described from his subjective point of view but from Della's impression of his reaction.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
What causes Della to get frustrated, as O. Henry emphasizes at the beginning of the story, is that she had been scrimping and saving all year to buy her husband a Christmas present and, with Christmas only one day away, she had only managed to save $1.87. It is interesting that O. Henry repeats this three times.
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present.
Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim.
O. Henry himself may have been under pressure because of Christmas. He was a notoriously heavy drinker, said to consume two quarts of whiskey a day, and he did a lot of his writing with paper and pencil in saloons. The story sounds a bit padded. He probably had to produce a certain quota of words for the paper that employed him. He may not have reread his production carefully. He may not even have been able to read it over by the time he finished it. Otherwise he should have seen that he was just repeating himself. But, anyway, Della was frustrated because she hadn't been able to save up enough money to buy her husband a really good present.
This problem leads to a desperate solution. Impulsively, she goes to a hair buyer called Madame Sofronie and sells all her beautiful, long hair for twenty dollars. With this small fortune she can buy Jim a truly luxurious platinum watch-fob. But the solution leads to a greater problem. She is afraid her husband will stop loving her when he sees how she looks without her hair. She becomes frustrated again until Jim returns home from work and reassures her that he will always love her, and proves his love by telling her he sold the watch to buy her a set of combs for her vanished hair.
Della's feelings are the most important, because this is really Della's story and not the story of Della and Jim. Jim is a minor character who has only a walk-on appearance at the very end. Della's frustration will lead to the touching ending.
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