Figurative Language in "The Gift of the Magi"

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters.

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• hyperbole

Answer explanation

Della's hair is being compared to a waterfall.

It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her.

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• hyperbole

Answer explanation

This metaphor emphasizes the thickness and length of Della's hair. She could practically wear it like a garment.

For there lay The Combs-- the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window.

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• hyperbole

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy.

• simile

• metaphor

• personifcation

• hyperbole

Isn't a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now.

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• hyperbole

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings.

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• hyperbole

Answer explanation

This is similar to saying, "Time flies when you're having fun." Time went by quickly because Della was having so much fun shopping for Jim's present.

She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• hyperbole

Answer explanation

Della was not literally destroying the stores; she was simply looking everywhere for the perfect gift for Jim.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail.

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• hyperbole

Answer explanation

Jim is being compared to a hunting dog. A hunting dog stands still when it catches the scent of its prey. Jim was so shocked when he saw Della's hair that he stood as still as a setter, a hunting dog.

They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession.

• simile

• metaphor

• personifcation

• hyperbole

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out.

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• hyperbole