The story "The last Leaf" was written by the American writer William Sydney Porter, who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry. He employed a dry, but yet humorous style to convey his message

The story "The last Leaf" was written by the American writer William Sydney Porter, who wrote under the pseudonym O.Henry. He employed a dry, but yet humorous style to convey his message. His short stories are well-known for delightful twist endings, wordplay and wit. The unicity of his allusions and ironies is also out of the question. O.Henry is credited for "The Furnished Room", "The Last Leaf", "The voice of the city", "The Gift of the Magi" and the others.

The story supports the idea that sacrifice, true human relationships, compassion does exist in our world. Even the title is very symbolic, as it was the last leaf of hope for poor Johnsy. O. Henry reflects the purpose of an artist and art in his story. Since no one except the person endowed with creative imagination would think of such absurd and yet great idea - replace the real sheets of paper, drawing them so skillfully that no one featured. It gives a person a purpose to live, to fight for something no matter what and never give up.

The message is to show that appearances are deceiving and one should judge people only by their actions as old Behrman behaves fierce and aggressive but nevertheless he is like “mastiff-in-waiting to protect”.

The events in the analyzed story happen in New York, in early 20th century. The story presents two artists, Johnsy and Sue, who live as roommates in a three-story studio in Greenwich Village. This small district is very specific, as its streets mixed up and created strange angles and curves. So artists discovered this peculiarity and made there a "colony".

From the window of their room the young artists would see only a "dreary, bare" (epithets), dark yard, voiceless house and one leaf, left by the "cold breath of autumn" (metaphor) on an ancient ivy vine with its "skeleton branches" (epithet), that "climbed the brick wall"(the case of metaphor). Such a gloomy, sore outdoorview fully renders Johnsy's helpless and despondent spirit. This image is very important, as it exemplifies gradation of her state of mind throughout the whole story. Johnsy thinks she will die once the last ivy leaf falls. So when this last leaf remains, though it's still "decaying", it yet clings "bravely" to the branch (the cases of personification and epithet). It gives a bit more hope for Johnsy as she realizes that even the leaf fights with nature for its life.

The setting of the events in the given extract is realistic and presented in a specific way. It provides a background for a cultural context that contributes to our understanding of the characters, as this desire to live together only on the ground of similar tastes reflects their profound love to art.

From the viewpoint of presentation the given story is the 3rd person narrative. Though the author desribes the events in a specific way, still he sounds rather impersonal and objective.

Each of O.Henry's stories, as it's expected, is different, but they're told in a strikingly similar pattern. They fall into traditional compositional structure. The short story "The Last Leaf" is not an exception.

The story begins with introduction, where the main intrigue is introduced. O.Henry describes a peculiar little district in New York, which dragged in many artists. In exposition two artisits, Johnsy and Sue are presented, who met by chance, found their tastes in art similar and decided to rent a room in this district.

The initiating incident appears, when one day Johnsy is smote down by "unseen stranger", whom the doctors call pneumonia. O.Brien describes i'd seem an ordinary illness as a brutal man who wanders the streets touching here and there with "his icy fingers smiting his victims by scores". For him he's "the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer". Such impressive cases of metaphorical personification greatly contribute to out understanding of the image. Though the doctor says that the only thing that can improve Johnsy's condition is her desire to live, she looking at an old ivy vine decides that she'll die once the last leaf falls. And even Sue's reasonings that she'll recover soon don't comfort her. Johnsy constantly looks at the vine and counts the leaves. Meantime Sue asks old Behrman, a painter who lives on the ground floor beneath them to pose for her painting, Sue tells him of her friend's fancy and it shocks him so much that he can't believe that a poor girl can think of such stupid things. These events gradually intensify the conflict.

The story reaches its climax when next day aftrer the beating rain one leaf still hangs from the branch.

The resolution introduces a progressive recovery process of the young artist. When the doctor comes to check up Johnsy's health, he mentions that old Behrman has also fallen ill with pneumonia and is in a very poor condition, so he is taken to the hospital this day. Later as it turns out the old man painted his masterpiece - an old ivy vine with one leaf on it right in front of the window of the young artist. And for Johnsy's salvation he had to sacrifice his life. O.Henry lets make conclusions for his readers themselves.

As far as the types of speech employed by the author of the analysed text are concerned, it's rather a mixture of narration and description with some insertions of dialogue, while the author's narration being dominant.

The characters we meet in the story are Johnsy, Sue and old Behrman. They are artists and live in the same old brick house in quaint old Greenwich Village. Johnsy embodies the idea, that despair can be rooted out, if the person's motivated. The young artist still doesn't give up, though in the first place her fancy is so strong, that neither friendship nor desire to live can keep her out of these thoughts. The case of simile "lying white and still like fallen statue" renders her hopeless state of mind. As she sees that the last leaf on an old ivy vine fights with nature for its life, she realizes that "it's a sin to want to die".

Her friend Sudie plays a supporting role in the novel. Though the only fact that clings them together is their deep love to art, that they tied for the first place (that is seen from her saying "Is a man worth - " that is aposiopesis), Sue is a very good friend to her. She constantly tries to comfort her, even so she takes Johnsy's fancy with "magnificent scorn" (the case of oxymoron). It's clearly seen that she worries about her roommate, but tries not to show it: "Sue went to the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime". She isn't even concerned with the communicable disease her friend has. The only thing that bothers her is Johnsy's soon recovery.

One more character we meet is old Bahrman, perhaps a German painter (this impression is derived from his speech characterization: "is dere", "mit", "bose", "der", "vill", "vy", etc ), who is "a failure in art". Such vivid metaphor is used to create an image of him as a "false" painter, who is doing nothing but say he's about to paint a masterpiece, but this first impression turns out to be wrong. A "fierce little old man" does create his masterpiece - a permanent wall with a lone leaf on it. Such image suggests the idea that appearances are deceiving.

The author skillfully creates a sharp contrast depicting his characters: the desperate, droppy artist, her warm-hearted friend, who represents hope and mainly drives the story development and Mr. Behrman, who accommodates two images in his nature, thus the author emphasizes the striking difference between wretched appearance and rich inner world.

O.Henry uses different stylistic devices aimed at revealing the theme of the short story, portraying the main characters and creating a special atmosphere.

As far as lexical stylistic devices are concerned we come across on hyporbolic metaphor "the lonesomest thing in the world is a soul" which indicates a helpless, frustrated and desparate Johnsy's state of mind as her soul is ready to go on its "mysterious, far journey" (epithet). The case of pesonification "the fancy seemed to possess..."confirms such conclusion. One more vivid case of personification "streets have run crazy, broken themselves...and made strange angles and curves"also refers to the girl's broken soul and lost hope, though it seems that the author only describes the district the young artists live in. It backs up the idea that O.Henry's SDs have several meaningful layers.

There are also numerous cases of periphrasis:"came prowling", "imported pewter mugs", "found tastes so congenial", "pave the way", "solicitously", "mobid" and the others. In the sentece "I will do all that science so far it may filter though my efforts, can accomplish." we meet several cases of periphrasis that indicate the speaker's profession of a doctor, so he feels it natural to use such terminology.

With the help of epithets "silly ivy leaves" (Sue) and "poor tired leaves" (Johnsy) a contrast between girls' world perception is created. It shows that Sue hearing such a "nonsense" cannot believe that some "silly" leaves can infuence her friend so much that she relates their lifetime to hers. And on the other side Johnsy is with her as tired and poor leaves as she is.

As for syntactical SDs, there are lots of cases of ellipsis and inversion, deprived of any stylistic colouring and aimed at denoting colloquial speech. We can also see repetitions, namely the cases of ordinary repetition: "counting, counting", "I'm tired of, I'm tired of...", "down, down" and ring repetition "Gott...Gott". The later example shows the old painter's shock of such stupid things Johnsy thinks of.

There are also several cases of graphic and phonetic SDs, that is graphon: "vass", "dot", "leetle", "Yohnsy", "vil", "ve", "dis" and the others that indicate the paiter's German origin. And finally O.Henry uses graphic means (hyphenation): "mastiff-in-waiting to protect" (reveals Behrman's nature), "one chance in - let us say", "is a man worth - but.. " (shows Sue's astonishment that the doctor could think that a man can be somehow the reason of her fancy),"counting-counting" and the other cases. The rest of stylistic devices employed by the author are already mentioned above.

So summing up the analysis we should say that the great writer O.Henry brilliantly using metaphors, epithets, symbols alongside with his “twist” endings skillfully reveals the main idea of the story and impresses the reader to make his works never forgotten.

Unknown на 19:09