A Service of Love introduces Joe, a talented artist, and Delia, a talented pianist, who both go to New York to take professional classes. There, they meet each other, fall in love, and soon marry. However, they have a financial problem and are unable to pay their learning fees; Delia couldn't see Joe give up his art classes, and so told him that she would teach pupils piano lessons. Every day, she would come back talking about her pupil Clementia and her big mansion. Soon, Joe would also come back saying that he sold his sketches to a rich man from Peoria. One day, Delia comes back with a bandaged, burnt hand, and Joe is concerned and suspicious. She reveals that Clementia was made up, and she couldn't find any students so she ironed clothes in the laundry; she burnt her hand while ironing. Joe also revealed that the man from Peoria was also his creation and that he worked in the same laundry, and was sent to get cotton for a girl upstairs who burnt her hand. The story ends with “When one loves, no service seems too hard.”
Love and passion are hard to balance; one could either decide to appreciate one’s love more or continue to chase one’s dream. In one’s life, everyone would eventually come to the difficult choice of choosing to sacrifice their dream for love or love for their dream. In A Service of Love, Joe and Della’s inseparable love soon outnumbered their actual desire to continue learning their arts and persevering in their dreams. However, Santiago and Fatima in The Alchemist have a different relationship with the former couple. Fatima told Santiago to continue pursuing his dream and could only come back to her if he achieved it; they value dreams and passion relatively more than love and romance. In the same novel, there are also minor stories and relationships much like Joe and Della’s: the popcorn man that Santiago meets sacrificed his dream of being a shepherd to have a stable family and good wife, as a father would rather have his daughter marry a baker than a shepherd. Love and passion are two separate factors, but are vividly connected with sacrifice. Some people would rather settle in a stable family than venture out to chase a dream, while others do not. The choice and decision a person makes greatly depends on their current condition: if they have a stable love relationship already, they are more likely to sacrifice their dreams for love; but if they are still young and have the desired condition to take a risk to pursue their dream, they would most likely leave love to achieve their goal. Each and everyone meets a difficult choice between love and passion as they mature; their decision also depends on their current condition, financial situation, family situation, relationship, and more.
When love is taken into serious consideration, it could actually cause more fear, lies, and negative thoughts than positive emotions because one would be afraid to break their relationship. If one is greatly committed to one’s love relationship, negative and guilty thoughts could corrupt the connection entirely. In the short story, Delia and Joe are both shown to be greatly devoted to their love, and they have even given up their own passions in order to support each other. Delia decided to quit her career in order to get money to pay for Joe’s fees and tried hiding her true job because she didn’t want Joe to feel guilty for letting her take care of the financial situation while giving up on her dream. Joe does the same, and both choose to suffer themselves just to support the other. In The Gift of the Magi, the Dillingham couple both suffer in a way and sacrifice their greatest gifts in order to let the other celebrate a happier Christmas. Moreover, Joe in the short story seems to be greatly concerned with Delia’s burnt hand but doesn’t talk much about the hard work he endured while firing the engine. Love can cause negativity as well as positivity when dealt with in various ways. If a love relationship is taken too seriously, one could harm oneself in different ways just to let another go through less burden; love could actually hurt rather than help one’s condition if one devotes too much to it and ends up sacrificing oneself for another.
Irony is greatly used when describing plots that turn out to be extremely different from the expected ending; this rhetorical device is often used by O. Henry, who is also the author of A Service of Love. The novel shows irony when it is revealed that Joe and Delia have both lied to each other about their method of income and their passion. In A Service of Love, situational irony appears when the ending and the character’s confessions are revealed. Joe and Delia are found to have both lied to each other about their jobs and their giving up on their careers. However, they did hide the truth because of their pure love and concern for each other. Moreover, O. Henry uses suspense to strengthen the reader’s shock and surprise when the ending is revealed. He only tells us what Delia and Joe each know about the other and conceals the secret. In addition, at the near end of the short story, Delia is shown to stutter when finding an excuse for her burnt and bandaged hand: “The iron — I mean the rabbit came off the fire about that time.” She spills out part of her secret, that the true reason for her burnt hand centered around “the iron”. Before the final reveal of the ending, Joe also seems to be acting suspicious: he “washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark paint from his hands.” Although he does take an art course, Joe only sketches and doesn’t paint. The author, O. Henry, reveals bits and pieces of the truth near the end and then uses irony to completely bewilder the reader.
A Service of Love, by O. Henry, narrates a story of how Delia and Joe each secretly sacrifice their own passion for their love so that the other can keep pursuing their dreams. Everyone, like Delia and Joe, must eventually decide between choosing to sacrifice their dream for love or love for their dream. One’s choice would also depend on their current condition, relationship, family situation, financial situation, and more. In addition, when one is committed and devoted to love too much and too seriously, one can experience more suffering and harm just for letting another carry less burden. Delia and Joe, in this case, both secretly sacrifice their own dreams, attempting to let the other one continue their passion. In this short story, O. Henry, the author, uses irony when the ending is finally revealed, and surprises the readers. He purposely spilled out bits and pieces of the truth in the climax, when Joe washed black paint from his hands and when Delia accidentally said something concerning the iron. Irony is used to surprise the readers, especially when they have no clue about the result, and could make a story overall more exciting and interesting.
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