critical analysis of "The Last Leaf" by O. Henry | bea gomez

Julian Gerard L. Antipolo                                                                                                            12/7/19                                                                             
11- Onesta/ ABM                                                                                                                    Ms. Baloto

The Last Leaf

story by (O. Henry)

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The story centers on Sue and Johnsy, two young women artists who met in a restaurant, discovered their shared tastes in art, and decided to live and work together. They share an inexpensive studio at the top of a run-down apartment building. When winter falls, a stranger named “Mr. Pneumonia” visits the neighborhood, and people begin to fall ill. Johnsy, too, becomes grievously ill with a case of pneumonia. A doctor visits and tells Sue that Johnsy has a one in ten chance of living, and that her only chance is to “want to live,” since depression can be as fatal as pneumonia. Without wanting to live, the doctor’s medicine will have no effect and she won’t regain her health. The doctor wonders if Johnsy is depressed about something in particular. Sue mentions her unfulfilled ambition to paint the Bay of Naples, but the doctor dismisses this and asks if Johnsy is depressed over a man. Sue tells him firmly that his suspicion is wrong, and there is no man in Johnsy’s life. sue sits by Johnsy’s bedside working on an illustration for a magazine while Johnsy counts the leaves falling from the vine outside her window. When the last leaf falls to the ground, Johnsy asserts, she will die. Sue tells Johnsy that she’s being silly and that the doctor has given her a good chance of recovery (which is a lie). She promises Johnsy that she will buy more food and wine after she sells the illustration, but Johnsy is unresponsive to Sue’s attempts to cheer her up, and she asks Sue to draw in the other room. Johnsy says that she wants to “turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.” Sues goes to visit their downstairs neighbor, an old, alcoholic, and unsuccessful artist named Behrman who earns a small income posing as a model for artists in Greenwich Village. Behrman, who has tried and failed his whole life to paint a masterpiece, is fiercely protective last leaf of Sue and Johnsy. When Sue tells Behrman about Johnsy’s fixation on the last , he is contemptuous of what he calls her “foolishness,” but he agrees to come up to their studio to pose for Sue’s illustration. While Johnsy sleeps, Sue and Behrman look solemnly at the ivy vine, and then Sue begins her work. There is a violent storm during the night. But in the morning, when Sue pulls up the shade covering their window, the last leaf  is still clinging tenaciously to the vine. Johnsy was sure that it would have fallen during the night, but she says that it will fall today instead, and when it Does she will go, too. Sue begs her to reconsider, but Johnsy is silent. The narrator notes how lonely it is to face death and says that this depression possessed Johnsy increasingly as “one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.” After another night of wind and rain fails to shake the last leaf from the vine, Johnsy sits up and asks for soup and a mirror, remarking that “something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was…it is a sin to want to die.” A little later, Johnsy mentions her ambition to paint the Bay of Naples. The doctor visits and gives Johnsy a good prognosis (“even chances”), predicting that she will recover.  The doctor tells the women that he has to visit another patient—behrman has caught pneumonia and needs to be taken to the hospital. The next day, Sue tells Johnsy that Behrman has died. The janitor found him sick in his room dressed in cold, wet clothes as though he’d been out in the storm. In his room, Behrman had a ladder and painting materials, which reveals that he had stayed out all night, painting the image of a leaf onto the wall so that Johnsy would think the last leaf had survived the storm. Finally, Sue remarks, Behrman has painted his masterpiece. I've learned that every time we fall down each and every one of us have the capability to rise up and do great things, “ Your hand Is a gift from God and your talent is your spirit. “