The Last Leaf Summury
The Last Leaf Summury
The Last Leaf Summury
The short story ‘The Last Leaf’ is written by an American short-story writer named
O. Henry.
‘The Last Leaf’ was first published in 1907 in his collection ‘The Trimmed Lamp and Other
Story’. It is written in the time period when New York was experiencing rapid population growth
partly due to the immigration of European immigrants to the United States.
As the short story shows, in the early twentieth century, urbanization and
overcrowded living conditions in New York, led to different diseases.
The story is just like O. Henry’s other stories that have surprising endings. It is a
sentimental story with a tragic ending.
The story has three main characters, two girls named Johnsy, also called Joanna, the
other one being Sue and an old man named Behrman.
It is set in a colony in Greenwich Village, which functions as a colony for artists. Sue
and Johnsy are emerging artists. Johnsy wants to paint the Bay of Naples but she
falls ill and expects to die soon.
Behrman, an old man in the story who wants to paint a masterpiece for years but is
not able to do so.
The story has a serious and hopeless tone and it is narrated in third-person
narrative.
THE LAST LEAF SUMMARY
In the artists’ colony in Greenwich Village, New York lives two friends called Sue and
Johnsy. Johnsy’s real name is Joanna.
Sue and Johnsy met for the first time in a restaurant and found their interests
similar which resulted in them sharing a studio apartment on the top of a triple-
story building.
As the winter arrives, pneumonia strikes the city. Johnsy falls ill and a doctor comes
to examine her. After examining her, he tells Sue that Johnsy has lost hope of
getting well while it depends on her will power which is half the cure.
Sue comes in to complete her painting for a magazine but she hears a voice so she
moves to Johnsy’s bedside and sees her looking out of the window, staring at the
empty yard of the neighbouring brick-house. Sue hears her counting backwards.
She asks Johnsy that what she is counting. Johnsy replies, looking at the autumn-
stricken ivy vine in the yard of the neighbouring brick-house, that with each falling
leaf of the ivy vine, the time of her death is coming closer. She tells Sue that the
moment the last leaf falls, she will die.
Sue advises her to stop thinking negatively and take rest. She then goes downstairs to call
Behrman, to pose as a model for her because she cannot afford a professional model.
Behrman is an old man living downstairs in the same building. He wants to paint a
masterpiece but is unable to do so for years. His earnings come from the artists for
whom he poses as a model.
Sue tells Behrman about Johnsy’s illness and her lost hope. When they come
upstairs to Johnny’s room, they find her sleeping so they move to another room.
They look out of the window to the yard of the neighbouring brick-house and watch
the ivy vine when it is raining outside mixed with snowfall.
They both look worried.
The next morning, Johnsy asks Sue to push open the curtains because she wants to
see the last leaf fall but she sees that the last leaf is still there on the ivy vine. It
gives her some hope. She realizes that it is wrong to lose hope. She even asks Sue
to give her some soup and says that one day she will paint the Bay of Naples.
When the doctor comes to see her, he tells Sue that Johnsy was fine now. The
doctor also tells her that Behrman is suffering from pneumonia and now he is
admitted to the hospital.
The next day Sue informs Johnsy of Behrman’s death. She tells her that he has died of
pneumonia. The sweeper found him in pain lying in his room. He had spent the cold snowy night
outside, painting his masterpiece. The leaf that did not move or fall was his masterpiece that he
painted when the last leaf fell.