Here’s a summary of the chapter “The Last Leaf” and the answers to your questions, explained with emojis for easy understanding.
Summary of “The Last Leaf” 🍂💔🎨#
The story “The Last Leaf” introduces two young artists, Sue and Johnsy, who share a small flat on the third storey of an old house. In November, Johnsy falls seriously ill with pneumonia and lies in bed, unmoving, gazing out of the window. Sue becomes deeply worried and calls for a doctor, but despite daily visits, Johnsy’s condition doesn’t improve. The doctor tells Sue that Johnsy seems to have “made up her mind that she is not going to get well” and that medicines won’t help if she doesn’t want to live.
Johnsy becomes convinced that she will die when the last leaf falls from an old ivy creeper on the brick wall opposite their window. She anxiously counts the falling leaves. Sue tries to cheer her up by talking about clothes and fashion, and even bringing her drawing-board into the room to paint, but Johnsy remains unresponsive. Sue begs Johnsy to promise not to look out the window while she paints, to which Johnsy reluctantly agrees, wanting to “sleep forever” once the last leaf falls.
Sue then goes downstairs to Behrman, a sixty-year-old painter who lives on the ground floor. Behrman’s lifelong dream is to paint a masterpiece, which has remained unfulfilled. Sue pours out her worries about Johnsy’s delusion to him. Behrman, though initially dismissive of Johnsy’s foolishness, accompanies Sue to see her. They see that only one leaf remains on the creeper, and it’s raining heavily with an icy-cold wind, making it seem as though the leaf would fall any minute.
The next morning, Johnsy asks Sue to draw the curtains, expecting the leaf to be gone. To Sue’s astonishment and Johnsy’s weak surprise, the leaf is still there, looking “quite green and healthy” despite the storm. Johnsy believes it will surely fall that day, but Sue insists she has to live. After watching the leaf cling on through another evening storm, Johnsy has a change of heart. She realises she has “been a bad girl” and that “it is a sin to want to die,” inspired by the leaf’s resilience. She begins to cooperate, taking soup and combing her hair.
The doctor confirms that Johnsy now “has the will to live” and will recover soon. However, he also reveals that Behrman is suffering from pneumonia and “there is no hope for him”. The next morning, Sue tells Johnsy that Behrman died. She explains that the janitor found him with wet clothes and shoes, shivering, having been out in the stormy night. Near his bed, they found a ladder, a lit lantern, and green and yellow paints. Sue then reveals that the leaf Johnsy had been watching, which didn’t flutter in the wind, was actually Behrman’s masterpiece—he painted it the night the last leaf fell.
Answers to the Questions 🤔#
What is Johnsy’s illness? What can cure her, the medicine or the willingness to live? 🤒💖 Johnsy’s illness is pneumonia. The doctor explicitly states that if Johnsy “doesn’t want to live, medicines will not help her”. This indicates that her willingness to live is crucial for her recovery, more so than the medicine alone. This is further supported when Johnsy’s change of heart, brought about by seeing the last leaf persist, leads the doctor to say she “now has the will to live” and is confident she’ll recover.
Do you think the feeling of depression Johnsy has is common among teenagers? 🧠💬 The sources do not provide information on whether the feeling of depression Johnsy experiences is common among teenagers. The question is listed under a “THINK ABOUT IT” section, suggesting it’s for reader reflection and discussion, rather than being answered directly within the text.
Behrman has a dream. What is it? Does it come true? 🌠🖼️ Behrman’s lifelong dream is to paint a masterpiece. This dream does come true, but not in the way one might expect. His masterpiece is the single ivy leaf he painted on the wall during the stormy night to save Johnsy’s life.
What is Behrman’s masterpiece? What makes Sue say so? 🌿✨ Behrman’s masterpiece is the last leaf he painted on the ivy creeper, which Johnsy believed was real and was clinging to. Sue calls it a masterpiece because it was painted so realistically that Johnsy couldn’t tell it apart from a real leaf. More importantly, it was this painted leaf that restored Johnsy’s will to live and saved her life, even though Behrman himself died from the exposure he endured while painting it. It was a selfless act of creation that had a profound life-saving impact.