Interpretation of literary

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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 ..."
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 gu ys 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
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
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
   

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  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
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 '^sShe 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?"
"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".
"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
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.
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".
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?
   
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.
    

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