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 19^th 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.