Lauren Strangis
Ms. Bailey
English 1 CPA
10 April 2015 The Necessity of Sacrifice
This paper is about personal feelings on the topic of sacrifice. Nothing is gained without something being given up. The main idea of this paper is to persuade the reader into having a different opinion on the topic of sacrifice for love. Sacrifice is necessary in most relationships because if one genuinely loves the person that he or she is with, they will do anything in their power to make the other one person happy. Sacrifice could be unnecessary, because a lot of times people in a relationship will not want to make sacrifices, but want to just thoroughly be there for one another. Sacrifice is not only a big part of love; it is necessary for love to exist.
Nothing is gained without something being given up. Life is full of boundless possibilities, but in order to transform a possibility into a reality, we have to choose.
Many times, love can cause people to sacrifice for one another, even though it may end badly for that person. In the story “The Gift of the Magi,”a married couple is not that wealthy around Christmas time. That is not a good time to have only a little bit of money. The couple makes big sacrifices for each other in order to get a gift for one another, so they can have a gift for Christmas. “‘You’ve cut off your hair?’ asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.” (O’Henry 264). In this quote, the husband
Jim is just realizing that his wife had cut and sold her hair. This is an example of a large sacrifice to take action upon. Della, the wife, cut and sold all of her hair in order to have enough money to buy her husband a fob chain to go with his watch. This could be an example of how a sacrifice

could end badly. This could easily affect the way Jim could feel about Della, and differentiate his attraction towards her.
Sacrifice may not always be the best option. This is because sometimes one who is in a relationship may not want a vast gift, but only tranquil time spent with that person. One may just want to be with that person to spend comforting time with them instead of them actually sacrificing something meaningful to them for a luxurious gift in return. “‘Dell,’ said he, ‘let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em awhile.’” (O’Henry 266). This is also quoted from the story The Gift of the Magi, and it just shows that that present from Della doesn’t mean nearly as much as she does to him. He is stating that over everything, being with her tops it all. There are a few quoted lyrics from a song that show how much one cares for somebody else, and wants nothing except for that one person: “Just to see you smile, I'd do anything that you wanted me to. When all is said and done, I'd never count the cost. It's worth all that's lost.
Just to see you smile” (McGraw). This song artist is putting out there that all he really wants is to be with this girl, and just see her smile. This shows that he would actually make any sacrifice on his part in order to see her smile. So, there are, in fact, many men who