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"The Last Leaf" Critical Analysis by Josh Melchor


Josh Christian A. Melchor                                                                              Reading and Writing
11-Onesta STEM                                                                                                        Ms. Baloto

A Critical Analysis of the Last Leaf
                                                                       
This story is about a young girl named Johnsy who is suffering from pneumonia who loses hope in her life. Johnsy has a roommate named sue who is very positive about her recovery. The doctors informed Sue that Johnsy’s chance for survival is limited. She wants Johnsy to believe that everything will be just fine. Sue then informed Mr. Behrman an artist and their neighbor that Johnsy continues to lose hope in her recovery which made him slightly mad about that and he is aware that if the last leaf fell, it’s her time to die. The next morning, after a storm struck their place, Johnsy saw the last remaining leaf still clinging on its stem. She decided that she wants to continue living because she thought that there must be a reason for that leaf to refuse to fall. Johnsy continues to lose hope but when she saw the last leaf that is still strong, she had hope. She didn’t know that it was Mr. Behrman who painted the leaf died who also suffers pneumonia. It all became clear that Mr. Behrman had finally painted his masterpiece, the leaf that saved Johnsy’s life.

Mr. Behrman sacrificed his life despite of his illness just to finish his artwork for Johnsy. He completely ignores the consequences of pneumonia just for her though it was not written in the story that Mr. Behrman was sick too. He is inspired to finish the painting for Johnsy but sometimes Mr. Behrman was getting disturbed or I should say ‘weakens’ when Johnsy continues to be hopeless in her recovery. On the other hand, Johnsy was already getting better without knowing that Mr. Behrman was already in his dying stage and led into the big plot twist in the story.

This story has a plot twist in it and it’s not a ‘happily ever after’ kind of ending. I didn’t expect that Mr. Behrman will die in the end. I somehow expected that it will end like Mr. Behrman will happily share his masterpiece after Johnsy recovers but nope it didn’t happen. It is full of different figures of speech and I sometimes can’t understand it that much because I’m not a reader kind of guy. Words are deep for me which also adds up to my confusion when reading the text. Those who loves reading books or articles with this kind of writing strategy, I assure you that you will be interested in reading this story.

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