In the short stories “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Necklace” the females both struggle with financial issue and have different ways to solve their problems. The woman named Della in “The Gift of the Magi”, written by O. Henry, does not have enough money to get her husband a gift, and is willing to give something precious up in return for money to get her husband a gift. In Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” the female character Mathilde is not very considerate and would rather spend a lot of money a party in she does not find fitting. Della is willing to sacrifice her hair in exchange for money to buy her husband a present, while Mathilde has forced her and her husband to live in ten years of drastic poverty because of a lost necklace. Mathilde and Della have many differences from their relationships with their husbands to how they choose to confront poverty. Mathilde is not in poverty until she makes a decision that puts her into ten years of extreme poverty. Della is in extreme poverty and makes a choice to give up her long beautiful hair in exchange for money to get her husband a present with for Christmas. Della has saved every penny she could for weeks to get her husband, Jim, a gift. She makes a decision to get her long precious hair cut…show more content… Mathilde places her and her husband in poverty for ten years after not being careful and losing a necklace. Mathilde does work to repay the necklace she lost and at the end of the story finds out that the original necklace she lost was only worth 500 frans. Della only has a little bit of money to get her husband a christmas present with and ends up selling her hair to buy her husband a chain for his watch. Her husband also makes a sacrifice and sells his watch to buy Della an expensive comb with and then finds out she cut her hair to buy him a new chain for the watch her
