I have read the story "The Last Leaf" written by O. Henry who is one of the best known
American short-story writers of the 19th century and of the present
day and chose it for my perfect stylistic analysis.
Why is just this book?
The answer is very simple.
This story is very interesting and sincere, well-constructed and logically
developed. I read it for so many times and it always gave me the same feeling
of freshness.
The author’s real name is William Sidney Porter and O.
Henry is his pen name. He is a representative of realism, who wrote about the
life of ordinary people in New York City. Typical for O. Henry's stories is a
twist of plot which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance. Although
some critics were not so enthusiastic about his work, the public loved and
loves it. The plots of his stories are clever and interesting, and the end is
always surprising.
You may have read or heard about some of his most
popular stories, such as The Gift of the Magi, The Green Door, or The Ransom of
Red Chief. No matter how many times you read them they always give you the same
feeling of freshness. So does the story ‘The Last Leaf’.
There are at least five reasons why you should read O.
Henry's short stories:
1. O. Henry is the
master of twist endings. He will surprise you with
either a twist of fate, an unexpected ending, or a character trait revealed in the
end that changes everything.
2. O. Henry loved
playing with words, using dialects, and coining new
words. In fact, he's the one who coined the term "banana
republic," which refers to a small country that is economically dependent
on a single export commodity, such as bananas.
3. If you want to
build your vocabulary power, these stories will help
you. O. Henry's vocabulary compared to Shakespeare's. His words are
simple, but varied (різноманітний).
4. Many of his
stories are set in New York City, where he lived during
most of his writing career. Many stories are also set in the Mid-West.
5. Although he went
through a lot, with losing his wife to tuberculosis
and being wrongly imprisoned, his stories are not dark or depressing.
They talk about universal values, such as self-sacrifice, true love, and
loyalty.
Setting is an important element in any short story. As I've said while
presenting the information about the author, many of O. Henry's stories are set
in New York City, where he lived during most of his writing career. So does "The Last Leaf". It is a good example
of O. Henry’s typical story. The action takes place in the largest city of the
USA - New York, in its small part, known as Greenwich Village. New York is
depicted here in the light of struggling artists, as the action takes place
inside the joint studio of two young artists around the old ivy vine, climbed
half way up the brick wall in front of their window. The
atmosphere of the story is rather gloomy due to the author's melancholic and
sad tone, cold, rainy, windy weather and illness, stalked about the city.
The
title of the story can be determined as highly symbolic. It agrees with
the contents of the text. Through its title the story conveys the theme of
death as “last” is usually used to denote something very close to death or
close to the end. The leaf is a symbol of despair that turns into a symbol of
hope. Johnsy thinks that the ivy leaf stands for her life, slowly falling away.
When the leaf remains, however, it becomes a symbol of hope for her.
On the most global scale
this story is about human values namely friendship and sacrifice. Sue and
Johnsy were living in reduced circumstances, but still they were rich in soul
due to their constant love and support towards each other without even
hesitation to sacrifice their own life.
Another theme the author focuses on is a sacrifice. We
saw how Mr. Behrman
gave his life to help Johnsy. He made the greatest sacrifice anybody could
make. Within the story the author tries to teach us not to lose hope and not to
abandon yourself to despair. He wants to point out in particular that only a
strong and confident person can survive in difficult life situations.
From the viewpoint of
presentation, it is the third person narrative. It sounds more objective, with the
author rather distant from the events depicted in the text. The author does not
impose his perspective on us.
In terms of the contextual type, the story is
written mostly as the author’s narration, but there are parts of description (‘He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down
from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp’) and dialogues (-
"It is the last one," said Johnsy.- "I thought it would surely
fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die
at the same time." - "Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn
face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself.
What would I do?").
There
three main characters in the story:
Johnsy, Sue and Mr. Behrman. To describe them the author uses a lot of
colorful and vivid stylistic devices. Johnsy
is one of the protagonists. Her image is created through direct and indirect
characterization. Directly the author tells us that she is “a little woman with blood thinned”, “very
ill and weak”. He uses simile to point out her lightness and
fragility and compares her to a leaf: “light
and fragile as a leaf”. Judging from her actions we got to know that Johnsy
is rather powerless, she is depicted as a weak and unconfident person who can
easily lose any hope and just abandon herself to despair. Johnsy imagined that she like that ivy leaf would
soon “fall off the tree of the life”. But
her friend Sue is strong enough.
Judging from her actions we got to know that she is confident, powerful and
self-assured person. Sue is depicted as a real friend in the story. She didn’t
give up Johnsy for a minute, instead she tried to help her to get well and to
make her believe in herself and forget the silly idea about the last leaf. Sue
constantly showed her love, support and care towards Johnsy. She called her “my sick child”, cooked broth and bought
port wine for her. Mr. Behrman is the third protagonist of the story. Though he
appeared only once and spoke twice in the whole story, his role is important in
the extreme. His image is created through direct, indirect and speech
characterization. Directly we got to know that “old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them.
He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the
head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art.
Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the
hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece,
but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now
and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by
serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the
price of a professional. He drank gin to excess”. Judging
from his way of speaking we can assume his German roots: “Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs
dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing...”. Mr.
Behrman is depicted as loving and helpful person who is ready to give his life
to help somebody. Describing Mr. Behrman the author uses such vivid epithets
as “a fierce little old man”,
“a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet”. At
the beginning of the story the author introduces another character that takes
part in the action – Mr. Pneumonia. In this case the author uses a very strong
stylistic device as personification. He describes it with the help of
epithets:
“unseen stranger”, “old gentleman”, “the
red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer”, “with his icy fingers” and metaphors:
“stalked about the colony”, “touching one here and there with its icy
fingers”.
To emphasize the formality
of the occasion the author employs primarily
formal vocabulary to communicate his
ideas to the reader. The usage of the literary-bookish words (‘to stalk about’, ‘’to subtract’, ‘to have
something on your mind’, ‘Mr.
Behrman’, ‘clinical thermometer’) creates the serious general tone of the
occasion.
At the same time there are
a lot of informal words (‘bosh!’, ‘goosey’,
‘greedy self’, ‘flibbertigibbet’, ‘but, lo!’, ‘duffer’) which create a
contrast to formal vocabulary. Due to the vocabulary used, the story is very
emotional.
The author’s expressive style is created with the help of lexical expressive means and stylistic
devices. To show young girls’ having a lot of things in common the author
uses zeugma: “and found their taste to art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves...”.
The usage of aposiopesis “A
man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. “Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there
is nothing of the kind” reflects Sue’s negative reaction, disagreement to
the doctor’s words and not wanting to say too much. To emphasize the grandness
of the notions art and literature, O. Henry uses antonomasia: “way to Art, way to Literature”. Enumeration
“Twelve, she said, and little later
“eleven”; and then “ten”, and “nine”; and then “eight” and “seven”, almost
together” stresses Johnsy’s hopelessness and despair as well as the
monotony of the action. Her weakness, paleness, tiredness and exhaustion are
depicted with a help of detached constructions: “Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one
falls I must go, too...”, simile:
“lying white and still as fallen statue...”, “just like one of those poor,
tired leaves”and partial parallelism:
“I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of thinking”. To show Johny’s moodiness,
at first having a great desire to bring her a lot of things and then sudden
change of her mind, the author uses anticlimax: “You may bring a me a little broth now, and
some milk with a little port in it, and
- no”. O. Henry uses polysyndeton
“And then they found a lantern,
still lighted, and a ladder that had
been dragged from its place, and
some scattered brushes, and a
palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it” to show how many things
needed Behrman to make his sacrifice.
A combination of these expressive means and stylistic
devices makes the author’s style highly original and easily recognizable.
From the viewpoint of
composition, the story is made up of the following parts:
·
exposition. It embraces the
first four paragraphs of the text and
introduces the main characters and the scene of the action. From this
part of the text we got to know that the action takes place in Greenwich
Village in November, in cold, windy and rainy weather at the time when pneumonia
stalks about the colony and deals with two young artists, Sue and Johnsy, who
shares the studio at the top of a three-story brick building;
·
development of
events. It is the biggest in size and the most important
part of the story. It starts with Paragraph 5 and is developed up to the
end of the text, up to the last paragraph and includes the climax, the
anticlimax and the conclusion. Here all the events take place: Johnsy catches
pneumonia and, according to the doctor’s conclusion, has one chance in ten to
get well. She thinks she would die when the last ivy leaf on the brick wall in
front of their window falls. Here the author introduces the character of their
neighbor Mr. Behrman, whom Sue tells about Johnsy’s illness;
·
climax (the most
intense part of the text) is the moment when Johnsy
learns from the last leaf which still remains on the ivy vine, in spite
of windy and rainy weather all night long, that it is a sin to want to die.
·
anticlimax is the next
paragraph after climax. Here the doctor
says that Johnsy will recover but Mr. Behrman caught pneumonia and has
no hope to get well;
·
and finally conclusion
which embraces the last paragraph when Sue tells
Johnsy about Mr. Behrman’s sacrifice and the masterpiece of his whole
life. This part of the text conveys the author’s other message to help people,
sometimes even to make a sacrifice if it can help somebody.
In conclusion it is worth mentioning that the story is really interesting to
read and to analyse due to the author`s colorful and vivid language of writing.
I will keep reading and analyzing his stories.
