What's the relationship between Della and the Queen of Sheba in The Gift of the Magi?
O'Henry makes the following allusion to the Queen of Sheba in the story:
Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts.
The narrator is trying to explain how proud Della is of her long, beautiful hair.
The Queen of Sheba in the Bible is a very wealthy queen from southern Arabia who brings King Solomon caravans of costly gifts, including gold and spices.
Della values her hair so highly that she would, if she could, go out of her way to show it off to even so important a person as the Queen of Sheba. This is because Della thinks her hair is more beautiful, and would therefore outshine, all the queen's jewels and costly items.
This comparison emphasizes how much Della loves...
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and values her long locks. Having the hair makes her feels richer than the Queen of Sheba, which is saying quite a lot. This makes clear what a sacrifice it is for Della to sell her hair, which in turn shows the depth of her love for Jim.
Why is Della described as prettier than the Queen of Sheba in "The Gift of the Magi"?
O. Henry does not actually say that Della is prettier than the Queen of Sheba; he only says that Della's hair would have been envied by the Queen of Sheba.
Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts.
This is the wildest kind of hyperbole. Imagine the Queen of Sheba living across the airshaft from Jim and Della's $8-a-week-apartment!
The Queen gave King Solomon 120 talents of gold. But he already had an income of 666 talents of gold per year, as stated in the Bible (King James Version):
Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold.
A talent was an ancient unit of weight and value in Rome, Greece and the Middle East. One talent weighed approximately seventy-five pounds, meaning the Queen of Sheba presented King Solomon with about nine thousand pounds of gold. That is 144,000 ounces. The current price of gold is around $1300 per ounce.
O. Henry's hyperbole is meant to imply, by exaggeration, the value that Della placed on her beautiful long hair, her only treasure. This, of course, will be important when she decides to sell it so she can buy her husband a Christmas present. She will be making a great sacrifice.
Since O. Henry was writing a Christmas story, probably for a Christmas edition of the newspaper he worked for, it seems appropriate that there should be references and allusions to the Bible. In addition to the Queen of Sheba, O. Henry mentions King Solomon and devotes an entire paragraph at the end of his story to the three kings, or Magi, who brought fabulous gifts to the baby Jesus on his birthday, which was traditionally the origin of Christmas and gift-giving.