The Last Leaf

“The Last Leaf” is heavily centered around the theme of The Power of Hope, using irony to amplify the story’s expression of that power. The last leaf itself, as a symbol, operates on two main levels: it is, at once, the real last leaf and the painted last leaf. The real last leaf is fragile. Its fall is inevitable. The painted leaf can withstand all that the terrible weather has to offer, the “beating rain” and “wild wind.” This duality suggests that hope is not as fragile or useless as it appears. Moreover, the irony of Johnsy believing that the painted leaf is the real one indicates that hope itself is also a matter of perception—as the doctor observes, “when a sick person begins to feel that he’s going to die, half my work is useless” (13). Hope is the capacity to live, something man can summon both for himself and for others.

Henry further builds the power of hope by constructing circumstances that pose genuine challenges to the characters. In constructing these elements, Henry draws heavily on the motif of weather and uses personification and imagery. The story takes place mainly in the midst of a brutal early winter storm. From the start, the tree that holds the last leaf has already been touched by “the cold breath of winter” (14). There are several references to the “cold rain” and wind, which seem to grow stronger at night. The winter, in turn, has also marked the entrance of the pneumonia epidemic; the narrator calls the disease by a title, “Mr. Pneumonia,” and characterizes him as a “not a nice old gentleman” (13). The characters have some small advantage in their setting, a “small part” of the city where “the streets have gone wild” (12); Greenwich Village is a setting of urban poverty, but the confusing labyrinth of streets provides some small measure of protection by making the artists within it difficult to find. Nonetheless, there is also a sense that the characters have nobody to rely on but each other—once the “busy doctor” has gone, Sue cries in the workroom alone, and at Johnsy’s confirmation of her resolve to die, Sue reaches out only to old, drunken Behrman.

The severity of the characters’ external challenges mark the intensity of their internal challenges. Henry’s choice of third-person point of view distances the reader from the characters; readers only experience the plot through the narrator’s eyes. By choosing this point of view, Henry elevates the plot over the characters; the emphasis is on the events, not the characters’ internal worlds. However, Henry compensates by using elements of the plot to make clear the depth of the characters’ feelings. The most evident example is his use of wind and rain as a symbol of Johnsy’s struggle. The weather outside is wretched, even deadly, just like Johnsy’s slow loss of hope—and her seeming inability to rekindle it herself.

In combatting the threat of hopelessness, Henry acknowledges that life is not necessarily easy, but we must find ways to stay tied to it. Ironically, we need things “worth being troubled about” (13). The temptation for Johnsy is the ease of letting go. To die would be to take the smooth path—she is sick of “waiting” and “thinking,” so “[h]er hold on the world [is] growing weaker” (15). Johnsy wants “to go sailing down, down, like one of those leaves” (15).

In this light, the doctor’s initial brief exchange with Sue, while somewhat comical, is revealing. When asked if something is troubling her roommate, Sue replies that Johnsy “always wanted to go to Italy and paint a picture of the Bay of Naples” (13). The doctor dismisses that answer, exclaiming that “paint” isn’t “worth” such a reaction. The rest of the story proves the doctor wrong in every way, driving home the theme of Art as a Transformative Force. After a brief cry, Sue establishes her resolve to stay with Johnsy by carrying her paint supplies into Johnsy’s room. Sue then summons Behrman, and after they check on Johnsy, the night in which Behrman will paint the last leaf begins. The silence at the start of this night is telling: The two friends “looked out the window fearfully at the tree. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking” (16). After, Sue spends most of the night painting Behrman. The effect is almost as if Sue has painted into being the Behrman that she and Johnsy need—where words may have failed, “paint” is capable of delivering them. Behrman may die in the end, but he has achieved his “great masterpiece,” fulfilling his purpose.

The connections between the “old, old tree” that holds the last leaf and “old Behrman” emphasize the importance of balancing autonomy with friendship when hope begins to fail. The theme of Friendship and Sacrifice is evident in Sue’s care and Behrman’s death. As Johnsy recovers, though, she also demonstrates a return to independence and the capacity to give. Initially, Johnsy insists on looking out the window: “I want to see” is a refrain that Johnsy repeats several times, as all her energy is expended on seeing what the last leaf dictates about her life or death. In the end, however, her hope returning, Johnsy makes a different request: “bring me a looking-glass, so that I can see myself” (17).