Interpretation of literary

ffr. . ~- — 
Mom!" be . 
136 
He noticed the slight shaking of her shoulders. 
"Now, now", he said, "that's nothing to cry over!" 
"It's been a little hard", she said. 
He lifted her face, smiled awkwardly, and then untied her apron. "Let's 
get out of this kitchen. 1 bet you've been in it all afternoon". 
He led her into the living room, made her sit down on the sofa, and with 
a sigh of relief eased himself into his rocker. 
But as she saw him stretched back in his usual position, her usual 
worries returned. Why should anyone want to pay him that .much 
money every week? And for what kind of work? He'd probably dreamed 
up something, or put some idle rumors together and. gone off star-
chasing again. "What was that telegram?" she said. "You said there was 
going to be a telegram ..." 

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159 
He chuckled. He reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, took 
one out, and lit it. "There's going to be a lot of telegrams, and one of 
them's going to be addressed to me. And it's going to say: If you are 
interested in working again for Hickam and Hickam, jileasc apply 
tomorrow ... The rocking chair squeaked loudly. "Mom — they're going 
to reopen the big war plant down the river! And all the old guys who 
worked there are going to be asked to come backl The telegrams went 
out this noon! And I saw Marconi, and Marconi said to me: Well, Pop, 
he said, I hear the Gas and Power Company is going to loose a meter 
reader! And then he laughed. Marconi isn't a bad guy. He doesn't expect 
me to stay on a lousy political job if I can earn three and four times as 
much doing what I did 
during the war". 
He stopped. Her face seemed very haggard: but maybe it was because of 
the bad light. Perhaps he should get up and switch on the lamp. He didn't 
move, however, just brushed the ashes off his lap. 
"There isn't going to be a war", she said, her voice flat. 
For a second or two, the statement threw him. Then he caught himself 
"Now what do you know!" he laughed. "What do you know! And what 
do you call this thing in Korea — a police action?" 
"There isn't going to be a war", she said, "as long as my Jimmie 
is in the Army". 
The squeaking of the rocker ceased. "Jimmie's out of the war", he said 
emphatically, "Why, the boy isn't even eighteen, and they're not sending 
anyone below eighteen to fight. And, besides, he's written you himself 
that his outfit is needed for the occupation of Japan". 
"Yes", she said. "That's what he wrote". 
"Well—why do you doubt it? Don't you trust your own son? What do 
you think he is — a liar? Sometimes, I just don't get you, Mom. Here 
I've come home with the first bit of good news in God-knowshowlong 
— and 1 wanted to tell — and you don't even let me tell you... " 
Mom got up and turned on the light. Pop looked so unhappy, almost like 
a kid who's lost his piece of candy. 
"So —go ahead— tell me!" she said. 
He \vatched her huddle back info the corner of the sofa. Her face seemed 
eager enough, now. 
'Til be a supervisor, I guess", he began. "Just imagine — being able to 
work in one place, not running from house to house, down into the cellar 

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160 
and up again. Oh, Moml" He crushed his half smoked cigarette. "You 
don't know how I felt sometimes. Or how my feet hurt ..." 
"I know", she said. "Most of the time I understand about the things you 
don't say, too". 
"And what kind of life is this?" he went on, starting to rock again, "I am 
going on forty-five, and what did I get out of all these years— for you, 
for me, for Jimmie? A lousy job at thirty-five bucks a week, and that job 
I couldn't hold on to without fawning upon Marconi". 
"I know", she smiled, "I know exactly how yoo feel. Don't you think 1 
know why you like io dream and make big plans and all that?" 
"But now it's going to be different!" he said. "I can't remember what \ve 
did with the money last time. I only remember that it went. This time 
we're going to handle it better. We're going to hang on to it, save at least 
half of it — let me think, that means saving about sixty dollars a week 
— three thousand dollars a year. Let's say two or three years of that, and 
we'll have a nice little nest egg for when we're old and I can't work 
anymore — or for Jimmie when he comes home. That kid's got falcrit. 
He can draw, and he's always been good at figures. He could be an 
engineer, or an architect. I want him to have a solid foundation in his 
life, solid foundation, not like me ...". 
He paused to light another cigarette. 
"Mom, there's been times when J'ye had an idea that you were laughing 
at me — not out loud, but laughing just the same — because I like to tell 
you nice things and how life could be if I only got half a break. That's all 
I've been asking for —half a break. The rest 1 can do myself. America is 
one country where a guy like me can't go wrong if he's willing to work 
hard and to apply himself, provided he gets his chance. Well —this is 
my chance. There'll be work, and plenty of it, and well-paid ..." 
The ashes dropped on his lap. He didn't notice. "I can see it already as if 
it was now! I take the bus down the river to the big plant. The steel gates 
open, and the guard kind of waves you in. There are thousands of guys 
like me going through, going through to work ..." The bell rang. 
Mom got up, but he was quicker than she. Squeezing her shoulder, ho 
said, "No, that's my telegram. That's a very special telegram, and I'm 
going to accept it myself. You don't mind?" "No',' she said. "You go and 
get it". 
She heard him open the door. She heard the Western Union messenger 
say something. She heard Pop's cheery voice, "Sure that's 138 

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161 
me! Hand it right over. I've been expecting it! No, wait a second-I guess 
you earned your guarter, coming all the way out here io •deliver it!" 
Then the other voice said, "Thank you!" and steps sounded, and then 
there was silence. 
After a while, Mom got up. 
"Pop!" she called. 
"Coming, Mom!" he answered. 
She saw him feel his way through the hall into the living room, .and she 
thought: Funny—the lights arc on — why can't he see? 
She ran to him and took the slip of paper out of his limp hand. 
She read only the first line: The War Department regrets to in-iorm you 
that your son — 
Tasks 
1) Relate the plot of the story, focusing on the main points. 
2) Comment on the composition of the story. Why is it graphi -
cally divided into three parts? Does this division coincide with its 
compositional structure? Where is the climax of the story, in your 
•opinion? 
3) Comment on the meaning of the title. What is the dictionary 
meaning of the word "cannibal"? Who docs it refer to in the story? 
4) What artistic details help to reveal the conceptual 
information of the text? What authenticity details clear up the setting of 
the story? Comment on the descriptive and charactcrological details
used in depicting Mom and Pop. 
5) What stylistic devices help to penetrate into the author's 
message? Comment on the function of aposiopesis at the very end of the 
story. 
6) What shape of prose prevails in the story? What additional 
pragmatic information can you extract from the individual speech 
habits of the characters? 
7) Characterize the category of modality in the text. Where is 
the author's attitude expressed directly? 
8) What can you say about the vocabulary and the syntax of the 
story? What words do you consider be key-words of the text? 
9) Draw conclusions about the conceptual information of the 
story. 
The Last Leaf 
O'Henry 

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162 
In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy 
and broken themselves into small strips called "places". These "places" 
make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itself a time or two. 
An artist once discovered a valuable possibility Jn this street. Suppose a 
collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing the 
route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been 
paid on account! 
So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, 
hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch 
attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a 
chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony". 
At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their 
studio. "Johnny" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the 
other from California. They had met at the table d'hote of an Eighth 
Street "Delmonico's", and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and 
bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted. That was in 
May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called 
Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with 
his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting 
his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the? maze of the 
narrow and moss-grown "places". 
Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. 
A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was 
hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy 
he smote; and she iay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, 
looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the 
next brick house. 
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a 
shaggy, grey eyebrow. 
I '
s
She has ont( chance 'in — let; us isay, ten", he said, as he .shook, 
down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. "And that chancc is for 
her to want to live. This way people have of lining-up on the side of the 
undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady 
made up her mind that she's not going to get well, Has she anything on 
her mind?" 
"She — she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day", said Sue. 
"Paint?—bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about 
twice —a man, for instance?" 

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163 
"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". 
"Well, it is the weakness, then", said the doctor. "I will do alt the 
science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But 
whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral 
procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. 
If you will get her to ask one question about the new styles in cloak 
sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in 
ten". 
After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a 
Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with 
her drawing board, whistling ragtime. 
Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face 
towards the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep. 
She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to 
HO 
illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by 
drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave 
their way to Literature. 
As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers 
and a monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard 
a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside. 
Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window 
and counting — counting backward. 
"Twelve", she said, and a little later "eleven"; and then "ten", and "nine"; 
and then "eight" and "seven", almost together. 
Sue looked solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? 
There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the 
brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed 
at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of 
autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches 
clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks. "What is it, dear?" asked 
Sue. 
"Six", said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. 
Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made rny head ache to 
count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only 
five left now". 
"Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie". 

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164 
"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've 
known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?" 
"Oh, I never heard of such nonsence", complained Sue, with magnificent 
scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you 
used to love that vine, so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the 
doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon 
were — let's see exactly what he said—he said the chances were ten to 
one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when 
we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some 
broth now, and let Sudic go back to her drawing, so she can sell the 
editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops 
for her greedy self". "You needn't get any more wine", said Johnsy, 
keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't 
want any broth. That leaves just four, I want to see the last one fall 
before it gets dark. Then I"ll go, too". 
"Johnsy, dear'', said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep 
your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? 
I must hand those drawings in by tomorrow. I need the light, or I would 
draw the shade down". 
"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly. "I'd rather 
be here by you", said Sue. "Besides, I don't want you to keep looking at 
those silly ivy leaves". 
"Tell me as soon as you have finished", said Johnsy, closing her eyes, 
and lying white and still as a fallen statue, "because I want to see the last 
one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. 
I want to turn louse my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, 
just like one of those poor, tired leaves". 
"Try to sleep',
1
said Sue, "I must call Behrman up to be my model for 
(he old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to-move till I 
come back. 
Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. 
He was past sixty and had a Michael Angclo's Moses beard curling 
down from the head of a satyr along the foody 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 

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165 
professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming 
masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed 
terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial 
mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two-young artists in the studio above. 
Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly 
lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had 
been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the 
masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she 
would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself,, float away, when her 
slight hold upon the world grew weaker. 
Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt 
and derision for such idiotic imaginings, 
"Vass!" he cried. "Is derc people in de world mit dcr foolishness to die 
because leafs dcy drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of 
such a thing. No, I. will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-
dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in dcr brain of 
her? Ach, dot poor lettlc Miss Yohnsy". 
"She is very ill and weak", said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind 
morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do 
not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old — 
old flibbertigibbet". 
"You arc just like a woman!" yelled Behrman, "Who said I will not 
hose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say 
dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as 
Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve 
shall all go away. Gott! Yes". 
Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled ihe shade 
down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In 
there they peered out of the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they 
looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold 
rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behr-'man, in his old blue shirt, 
took his seat as the hermit-miner on an upturned kettle for a rock. 
When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she 
14 ; 
found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green 
shifde. 
"Pull it up; I want to see". She ordered, in a whisper. 
Wearily Sue obeyed. 

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166 
But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured 
through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one 
ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, but 
with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it 
hung bravely from a branch some .twentfy feet above the ground. 
"It i(s the last one", said 'Johnsy.,'"! 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 1 do?" 
But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomcst thing in all the world is a 
soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The 
fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that 
bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed, 
The day wore away, and even through the twillight they could see Hie 
lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the 
coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still 
beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves. 
When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the 
shade be raised. 
The ivy leaf was still there. 
Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And .then she called to Sue, who 
was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove. 
"I've been a bad girl, Sudie", said Johnsy. "Something has made that last 
leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. 
You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in 
it, and —no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows 
about me, and 1 will sit up and watch you cook". 
An hour later she said. 
"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples". 
The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the 
hallway as he left. 
"Even chances", said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. 
"With good nursing you'll win. And now I must sec another case I have 
downstairs. Behrman, his name is — some kind of an artist, I believe. 
Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There 
is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital today to be made more 
comfortable". 

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167 
The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You've won. 
Nutrition and care now — that's all". 
And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay con- 
tentedly knitting very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and 
put one arm around her, pillows and all. 
"I have something to tell you, white mouse", she said, "Mr. Bchrman 
died of pneumonia today in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The 
janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs 
helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy 
cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. 
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. and—look out the window, dear, at 
the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or 
moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece —
he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell". 
Tasks 
1) Read the story and discuss its plot. Reproduce the 
exposition of the story. 
2) Comment on the stylistic function of antonomasia "Pneu -
monia". 
3) Pick out cases of euphemistic periphrases and speak on their 
implied meaning. 
4) Describe Old Behrman's appearance arid his character. Com-
ment on SD's used in this case. What impression of Old Behrman have 
you gathered? 
5) Point out the peculiarities of Behrman's speech and the ef-
fect it produces on the addressee. What are the pragmatic functions of 
Behrman's manner of speech relevant to his education, social position, 
emotional and psychological state of mind? 
6) Interpret the following sentence: "Behrman was a failure 
in art" and prove its inacceptability. 
7) Speak on the implication contained in the following senten-
ce: "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show now wicked I 
was". 
8) What is your attitude to Behrman? Does it coincide with 
your first impression? 

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168 
9) Speak on the conceptual information of the story. Interpret 
the last sentence: "Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece". What 
meaning is conveyed by the word "masterpiece"? 
10) Speak on the implied meaning of the story's title. 
Reunion