The document provides a summary of the short story "The Last Leaf" by O. Henry. It describes the characters Johnsy and Sue, two artist friends who live in Greenwich Village. Johnsy falls ill with pneumonia and believes she will die when the last leaf falls from a vine outside her window. The neighbor Behrman paints a leaf on the wall that will never fall to give Johnsy hope to survive. However, Behrman catches pneumonia from painting in the rain and dies, having created his masterpiece.

1. THE LAST LEAF
BY
O. HENRY
BY:
M.G.MRITHYUNJHAI

2. • The Last Leaf" is a short story
• Author: O. Henry (William
Sydney Porter)
• Published in 1907 in “The
Trimmed Lamp and Other
Stories”.
• The Last Leaf" was written by
William Sydney Porter and
published under his alias, O.
Henry.
THE LAST LEAF

3. ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
o William Sydney
Porter (O. Henry)
o September 11, 1862-
June 4, 1910
o Master of surprise
endings who wrote
about life of ordinary
people in New York

4. CHARACTERS OF THE LAST LEAF
 Sue, a young artist originally from Maine, is Johnsy’s
roommate. She takes care of Johnsy while Johnsy is sick.
Johnsy is a young artist from California. She contracts
pneumonia at the beginning of the story and is given a slim
chance of survival.
Mr. Behrman, a painter, is Sue and Johnsy’s neighbour.
When Sue tells him that Johnsy believes she will die when
the last leaf falls, he goes out in a storm to paint the leaf on
the wall, developing severe pneumonia in the process.

5. Synopsis/Summary:
Johnsy and Sue are artists
who move into Greenwich Village
in New York City. As Winter
approaches and the weather gets
colder, Johnsy becomes ill with
pneumonia.
She gets so sick that she believes
that when the last leaf falls from the
vine outside her window, she will
die.

6. An old artist, named Behrman, who lives in the same
building as the girls, braves a storm one night to paint a leaf
on the wall
— a leaf that will never fall. Cold and wet from painting in
the icy rain, he catches pneumonia and dies. This gives
Johnsy the hope to survive her illness, and it also creates the
masterpiece Behrman had always dreamed of painting.

7. THEME OF LESSON
O. Henry's “The Last Leaf” centers around three
struggling artists in Greenwich Village. The story is
set in the midst of a pneumonia outbreak, and at the
start of the story, Johnsy, a young painter, is afflicted
with the illness. A doctor places her odds of survival
at one in ten, in part because Johnsy is dispirited,
convinced as she is that she is going to die. She has
taken to watching a vine outside her window,
watching its leaves get blown off in the wind.

8. She intends to survive only until the last leaf is blown
away, after which point she will presumably expire.
Concerned by Johnsy’s dire outlook, her friends Sue and
Behrman encourage her to hold onto life. Eventually, as
Johnsy continues watching the last leaf endure against
the wind for several days, her own desire to live is
rekindled. By the end of the story, she has beaten the
odds and recovered, despite the doctor’s grim odds. The
story suggests that even small odds must be seized, and
hope must be sustained.

9. Johnsy’s struggles are thematically intertwined with those
of Behrman, an old, failed artist who continues to cling to
dreams of someday painting his masterpiece. As the end
of the story reveals, Behrman paints a copy of the last leaf
onto the vine, thereby inspiring Johnsy to live. At the end
of his life, Behrman has painted his masterpiece, and so he
achieves an aesthetic triumph, just as Johnsy achieves the
triumph of her recovery.

11. THANK YOU