The Last Leaf critical analysis

7. Analysis
of the
short
story

8. • The story focuses on two
female artists. The women are
named Sue and Joanna, who
is known as ‘Johnsy’. They live
in Greenwich Village in New
York among a ‘colony’ of
artists who reside in the area.

9. • One particularly
cold winter, Johnsy
falls ill with
pneumonia and it
looks likely she will
die of the disease.

10. • The doctor takes Sue to one
side and tells her that Johnsy
has perhaps a ten percent
chance of surviving, but what
she needs is something worth
living for that will give her the
strength to rally and recover.

11. • He asks Sue if
Johnsy has a man in
her life she loves,
but Sue says she has
not.

12. • Johnsy herself believes
that she will perish
when the last leaf of the
year falls from the ivy
vine outside her
window. She has
resigned herself to
dying, much to the
frustration of Sue, who
is trying to help her

13. • Sue and Johnsy live in the
top apartment of the house.
On the ground floor,
Behrman, a male artist in his
sixties lives. He has a beard
like Moses in Michelangelo’s
famous sculpture.

14. • He is always talking
about being on the brink
of producing his
‘masterpiece’, but has
never yet done so. He is,
in short, a failed artist.

15. • When Sue tells Behrman about
Johnsy’s belief that she will perish
when the last leaf falls from the
vine, he scoffs at such a
superstitious idea. But when Sue
asks him to come and pose for her
(he often poses for other artists),
he agrees.

16. • The next day, Johnsy
asks Sue to roll up
the blind so she can
look out at the ivy
vine and see if the
last leaf has fallen.
But when the blind is
put up, they find the
last leaf still holding
onto the branch.

17. • The day turns into night and still
the last leaf clings to the vine.
Johnsy apologizes to Sue, realising
how selfish it was to long to die
like that. She interprets the ivy
leaf’s tenacity as a sign that she
should not have been so ready to
embrace death.

18. • The doctor visits and
announces that Johnsy’s
condition has much improved.
However, he has also come to
visit Behrman downstairs, who
has fallen seriously ill with
pneumonia.

19. • Sure enough, he dies
soon after. In the final
paragraph of the story,
Sue tells Johnsy that
Berhman painted an
imitation ivy leaf and
attached it to the vine
on the wall the night
the real last leaf fell to
the ground.

20. • That leaf, which was good
enough to pass for a real leaf,
is his masterpiece, which he
has finally produced. But in
going out into the cold
weather to paint the leaf, he
caught pneumonia and died.

21. The Last Leaf Characters
• Joanna (“Johnsy”)
•A young artist from California. She
lives with Sue in a studio apartment
in Greenwich Village and has long
dreamed of visiting Italy to paint the
Bay of Naples. She falls seriously ill
with pneumonia

22. The Last Leaf Characters
• Sue
•A young artist from Maine. She
is very close to Johnsy, cooking
for her, caring for her, and
financially supporting her in her
illness.

23. The Last Leaf Characters
• Behrman
•An old and somewhat cantankerous
artist who lives downstairs
from Sue and Johnsy. He has been
painting for four decades without any
commercial success, but still hopes to
paint what he calls his “masterpiece.”

24. • Doctor
•A busy, older man with “shaggy
grey eyebrows” who attends
to Johnsy and Behrman. He
diagnoses Johnsy with mental as
well as physical illness

25. The Themes in the Last Leaf
• Hope and Hopelessness
•The main theme of the story is hope.
The author aims to highlight how
important it is for a person to have
willpower and hope. Johnsy is provided
with new hope when she sees that the
leaf that is supposed to decide her fate
is not falling. This shows that even a
small act can light the lamp of hope in a
person’s heart.

26. The Themes in the Last Leaf
•Sacrifice
•Another main theme of the story
is sacrifice. Behrman sacrifices
his own life in order to give some
hope to Johnsy. He is aware that
Johnsy thinks when the last leaf
falls, she will die.

27. The Themes in the Last Leaf
•So, he sacrifices his own life to
paint the last masterpiece of
his life. The ivy leaf on the
tree was painted by him so
that Johnsy could live her life
and have hope.