BACKGROUND OF THE STORY
The short story ‘The Last Leaf’ is written by an American short-story writer named O.
Henry.
‘The Last Leaf’ was first published in 1907 in his collection ‘The Trimmed Lamp and
Other Story’. It is written in the time period when New York was experiencing rapid
population growth partly due to the immigration of European immigrants to the United
States.
As the short story shows, in the early twentieth century, urbanization and overcrowded
living conditions in New York, led to different diseases.
The story is just like O. Henry’s other stories that have surprising endings. It is a
sentimental story with a tragic ending.
The story has three main characters, two girls named Johnsy, also called Joanna, the
other one being Sue and an old man named Behrman.
It is set in a colony in Greenwich Village, which functions as a colony for artists. Sue
and Johnsy are emerging artists. Johnsy wants to paint the Bay of Naples but she falls
ill and expects to die soon.
Behrman, an old man in the story who wants to paint a masterpiece for years but is not
able to do so.
The story has a serious and hopeless tone and it is narrated in third-person narrative.
THE LAST LEAF SUMMARY
In the artists’ colony in Greenwich Village, New York lives two friends called Sue and
Johnsy. Johnsy’s real name is Joanna.
Sue and Johnsy met for the first time in a restaurant and found their interests similar
which resulted in them sharing a studio apartment on the top of a triple-story building.
As the winter arrives, pneumonia strikes the city. Johnsy falls ill and a doctor comes to
examine her. After examining her, he tells Sue that Johnsy has lost hope of getting well
while it depends on her will power which is half the cure.
Sue comes in to complete her painting for a magazine but she hears a voice so she
moves to Johnsy’s bedside and sees her looking out of the window, staring at the empty
yard of the neighbouring brick-house. Sue hears her counting backwards. She asks
Johnsy that what she is counting. Johnsy replies, looking at the autumn-stricken ivy vine
in the yard of the neighbouring brick-house, that with each falling leaf of the ivy vine, the
time of her death is coming closer. She tells Sue that the moment the last leaf falls, she
will die.
Sue advises her to stop thinking negatively and take rest. She then goes downstairs to
call Behrman, to pose as a model for her because she cannot afford a professional
model.
Behrman is an old man living downstairs in the same building. He wants to paint a
masterpiece but is unable to do so for years. His earnings come from the artists for
whom he poses as a model.
Sue tells Behrman about Johnsy’s illness and her lost hope. When they come upstairs
to Johnny’s room, they find her sleeping so they move to another room. They look out of
the window to the yard of the neighbouring brick-house and watch the ivy vine when it is
raining outside mixed with snowfall.
They both look worried.
The next morning, Johnsy asks Sue to push open the curtains because she wants to
see the last leaf fall but she sees that the last leaf is still there on the ivy vine. It gives
her some hope. She realizes that it is wrong to lose hope. She even asks Sue to give
her some soup and says that one day she will paint the Bay of Naples.
When the doctor comes to see her, he tells Sue that Johnsy was fine now. The doctor
also tells her that Behrman is suffering from pneumonia and now he is admitted to the
hospital.
The next day Sue informs Johnsy of Behrman’s death. She tells her that he has died of
pneumonia. The sweeper found him in pain lying in his room. He had spent the cold
snowy night outside, painting his masterpiece. The leaf that did not move or fall was his
masterpiece that he painted when the last leaf fell.
THE LAST LEAF CHARACTERS ANALYSIS
The story ‘The Last Leaf’ has three main and one minor characters.
BEHRMAN
Behrman is an old man living downstairs in the same building in which Johnsy and Sue
are living. He is a failure in art and wants to paint a masterpiece but is unable to paint it
for years. He earns a little by posing as a model for the artists.
Though he cannot paint, he still has the hope to paint it one day. He has a character
who inspires Johnsy to start living again. He is optimistic and his hopefulness, at last,
leads him to paint his masterpiece.
JOHNSY
Johnsy is one of the main characters of the story ‘The Last Leaf’. She is an emerging
artist and wants to paint the Bay of Naples but becomes ill and suffers from pneumonia.
Due to her illness, she gives up her hope and thinks that she will die soon. She counts
the falling leaves of the ivy vine in the neighboring brick-house’ yard and tells Sue that
with every falling leaf, she is getting closer to her death.
She regains her hope by getting inspiration from Behrman’s masterpiece, the last leaf
on the vine that never falls off.
SUE
She is another main character and friend of Johnsy. She is also an artist and has the
same interests as Johnsy. She has a great role in Johnsy’s recovery from pneumonia.
She takes good care of Johnsy during her illness. She encourages Johnsy to never lose
hope and supports her emotionally and financially. Sue’s care and support help Johnsy
recover from her illness.
DOCTOR
Doctor, though, is a minor character in the story but he has an important role in
Johnsy’s recovery from pneumonia. He is kind towards Johnsy and wants her to get
well from pneumonia. He encourages Sue to take care of Johnsy and to make her think
positively. He advises Sue to guide Johnsy towards positivity and bring her back to life.
MR. PNEUMONIA
The story has another character which is in fact abstract. The narrator has stated
pneumonia as a gentleman who enters the city, touches people with his ‘icy fingers’ and
makes them ill. Mr. Pneumonia is not a good person. He victimizes every weak person.
Many of his victims die soon after the illness.
THEMES IN THE LAST LEAF
HOPE VS HOPELESSNESS
The theme of hope is the main idea of this story. The author has highlighted the
importance of will power in the story.
The doctor in the story says that Johnsy, who has lost her hope of getting well, cannot
be cured by medicines because half of the cure for a patient is the hope of getting well.
She loses her hope with every falling leaf and assumes that she will die the moment the
last leaf falls off but when the last leaf never falls, though it is the painting of Behrman,
she gains the hope of getting well.
And when the doctor does her check-up, he observes that she is much better now. It
shows that everything lies in one’s own mind and it depends on us, that how we think
about a particular situation.
It is obvious that the outcome of thinking positive is also positive while negativity will
lead you to hopelessness.
NEVER LOSE HOPE
Behrman, who is unable to paint his masterpiece for twenty-five years, does not lose
hope. He stays firm in his struggle and at last, he is able to act upon his dreams. After
spending a cold night outside, he paints his masterpiece though he catches pneumonia
and dies, his death comes after the accomplishment of his dream.
This example of strong hope shows that a person should not lose hope though the
situation may be unfavorable. People might discourage you but a person should not
lose hope.
SACRIFICE
Behrman sacrifices his life for giving hope to Johnsy. He knows that Johnsy thinks she
will die the moment when the last leaf of the ivy vine falls so he paints a leaf on the wall
which gives hope to Johnsy and she realizes that she should not lose hope. This act of
Behrman leads her to think positively because our thinking leads our actions and
defines our abilities.
Behrman’s sacrifice of staying the cold night out benefits Johnsy as well as leads him to
paint his masterpiece which he wanted to paint for years.
Another example of sacrifice in the story is the care and support that Sue gives Johnsy.
She takes care of her and supports her emotionally and financially though it is easier
not to get involved. She devotes her time to her friend and helps her regain her lost
hope. She brings Johnsy back towards life.
FRIENDSHIP
Sue’s friendship and sincerity lead Johnsy to regain her lost hope. Sue takes good care
of her friend Johnsy. Even the doctor appreciates her care for Johnsy and tells her that
it is because of her that Johnsy is feeling better.
This proves the statement that ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed.’
IMPORTANCE OF ART
Art is a way of expressing one’s feelings and emotions.
It needs great strength and will power for an old man to go out in the cold weather to
paint. Behrman goes out in the freezing cold and paints his masterpiece. His feelings
are conveyed to Johnsy through that painting. Behrman’s masterpiece gives him an
immortal life and inspires Johnsy to think positively and live hopefully.
THE LAST LEAF ANALYSIS
An analysis is the in-depth examination and critical study of a literary piece.
Having no comedic element, the short story ‘The Last Leaf’ has a serious and hopeless
tone. It has unexpected events and a tragic end.
The story is about two friends Johnsy and Sue. They have similar interests and
struggles but when Johnsy falls ill, she loses hope and expects to die soon. The
hopeless girl leaves behind all her dreams and counts down the falling leaves while
looking out of the window to the autumn-stricken ivy vine in the yard of the neighboring
brick-house.
The doctor who visits to examine Johnsy says that it is her hopelessness that is keeping
her away from getting well. Johnsy’s negativity forces her to leave her dreams behind
and only think about her death but when Sue gives her hope and she sees the last leaf
on the ivy vine still there. It gives her the hope to come back to life.
This shows that a person should think positively even in a hard situation and severe
illness. It gives positivity to the person’s mind and he can fight the bad situation and
disease with his positive thinking. It gives the person a moral strength to stay firm.
On the other side, if a person keeps thinking negatively, he will lose all his hopes. He
will stop chasing his dreams which will lead him to have a meaningless life.
The story gives the moral lesson of never losing hope. Behrman, who is a failure in art
for years but he does not lose hope and at last he is able to paint his masterpiece. A
person should not stop dreaming if he fails in achieving it for the first time. He should
keep struggling and a day will come that will bring him success.
True friendship is also defined in the story. Sue, a very good and sincere friend. She
keeps supporting Johnsy when she loses every single hope of becoming well. Sue is
indeed a true friend who proves that with good care and support, a patient can be
cured.
Giving different moral lessons, the story is a twisted and surprising one. The ending is a
tragic one, what is expected to happen does not really happen.
SETTING OF THE STORY
The short story ‘The Last Leaf’ is set in the colony of artists in Greenwich Village, New
York. The setting is significant in drawing the plot of the story because the main
characters in the story are artists living in a colony of artists. The narrator says
describing the place “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.” Such a description of the setting is done by the author in
order to create an image of the place in the mind of the reader because the setting is
significant in plot construction of the story.
“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.”
In the above sentence, the author has chosen Greenwich Village as the setting of his
story because his plot needed a setting where there would be a large number of artists
and Greenwich Village used to be and it still is a colony of artists. Since it is a little
village and the expenses of living there are low so a great number of struggling artists
live there.
CONFLICT
A conflict is an opposition faced by the protagonist of the story.
The conflict in the story is internal as well as external.
INTERNAL CONFLICT
This is an internal force fighting the protagonist.
Internal conflict in the story is Johnsy’s lost hope. She gives up and thinks only about
her death. Her own negative feelings do not let her get well. She is a pessimistic person
and her own negative feelings do not allow her to get well. She keeps thinking about her
death.
EXTERNAL CONFLICT
External conflict is an outside force or opposition fighting the protagonist.
The example of external conflict in the story is pneumonia. It is a force of nature that
fights the main character, Johnsy but at last, she defeats the illness and gets well.
TONE
A tone is an attitude in which the story is written. The tone can be conveyed through the
choice of words or the writer’s point of view.
The tone of the story is serious and hopeless.
POINT OF VIEW
The point of view of the story is third-person narrative.
SYMBOLISM
THE LAST LEAF
The leaf on the ivy vine is a symbol. Johnsy who is ill keeps looking out of the window
and watches the leaves of ivy vine fall. It makes her lose hope and she wonders that if
hundreds of leaves can fall so quickly, she will also die like this, with the pace of the
falling leaves her death will approach her.
The last leaf that seems to Johnsy a sign of her death, it becomes a symbol of hope for
her when she sees it on the ivy vine after the storm. The last leaf, though a painting,
gives her hope to get well and start living again.
PNEUMONIA
Pneumonia is a symbol of death in the story. When it arrives in the city it touches its
victims with its ‘icy fingers’. People would suffer from the illness and many of them
would die.

The Importance of Childhood Wonder
"My Heart Leaps Up" describes the pure delight the speaker feels upon seeing a rainbow.
This joy prompts the speaker to reflect on the passing of time and the significance of
childhood. It is in childhood, the poem argues, that people first feel a sense of powerful
awe and wonder at the natural world around them. In turn, adults should strive to
maintain the pure, enthusiastic reactions to the natural world they felt as children. Such
unbridled appreciation for nature, the poem argues, makes life worth living.
The poem begins in the present tense: the speaker says his heart "leaps up" when he sees
a rainbow. This reaction to the sight of the rainbow is not a new or unknown feeling,
however. Rather, the speaker has had the same reaction to seeing a rainbow for as long as
he can remember. The joy the speaker feels is the same joy he felt as a child, which the
poem marks by switching to the past tense in line 3 ("So was it when my life began").
The speaker takes comfort in realizing that he hasn't lost his childlike sense of pure,
unfiltered wonder upon noticing the beauty of nature.
The rainbow thus makes the speaker feel connected not only to nature, but also to his past
self. This sense of continuity from childhood to adulthood, in turn, gives the speaker hope
for a happy old age. Just as he has felt joy upon seeing a rainbow from childhood through
adulthood, he claims that he will continue to feel that same joy in his old age, signified by
the switch to the future tense in line 5 ("So be it when I shall grow old").
Furthermore, the speaker claims that it is through the experience of childhood that he
learned to feel the joy he does at the natural world. Turning the idea of parenting on its
head, the speaker suggests that childhood teaches people how to appreciate the simple
wonders of the natural world. While adults tend to have more knowledge, experience,
skills than children, children are closer to nature and do not regulate their reactions to it.
If thunder makes a child feel afraid, that child might cry or hide. Similarly, the rare,
colorful sight of a rainbow might give a child an unexpected thrill. A child's innocent,
almost religious enthusiasm for nature is what the speaker means by "natural piety" in the
final line. The speaker does not want to become jaded or immune to the powers of nature
over time, but instead hopes to maintain the child-like enthusiasm for the natural world.
The speaker hopes to keep his childlike appreciation of nature so much that, in line 6, he
claims he'd rather die without it, suggesting that to lose enthusiasm for the natural world
would be to lose what makes life worth living in the first place. The wisdom of childhood
is not one that can be learned through years of experience, the poem argues, but is instead
the innocence to notice the natural world and let it move you.

The Beauty and Comfort of Nature
A rainbow is a rare, fleeting, and often unexpected gift from nature. Seeing one can feel
both exhilarating and comforting—exhilarating for its rarity and comforting for its beauty
and implication of hope and wonder (in that rainbows appear after storms and signal a
return to brighter days). "My Heart Leaps Up" suggests that nature ought to be
appreciated for each of these qualities: the spontaneous beauty it can bring into people's
lives, as well as its comforting implication of hope.
It is easy to become jaded with everyday life, moving in and out of the same rooms,
walking the same streets, seeing the same people. It is a bit more difficult to get used to
something as sudden, beautiful, and momentary as a rainbow. They simply don't show up
every day! At the same time, though, rainbows happen over and again even if one can
never know when they will happen to see another.
The speaker of "My Heart Leaps Up" captures this tension between exhilaration and
comfort. His heart "leaps up" when he sees a rainbow, as if he is seeing one for the first
time. This reaction of joy and shock is not new, however, but the same reaction he has
always had when seeing a rainbow. The beauty of the rainbow is not just a momentary
feeling of delight, but also a familiar, comforting feeling at once again beholding the
beauty and hopeful wonder of nature.
"Natural" in the poem's final line not only refers to the natural world in general, but also
describes the sort of appreciation the speaker hopes to have for nature. That is, it is a
seemingly unrehearsed or effortless appreciation. The speaker's heart leaping up at seeing
the rainbow is "natural" in that he doesn't think about it, but merely feels it. It is an
effortless, almost instinctual reaction.
At the same time, the speaker wants his appreciation for nature to be something like
"piety." Piety is anything but spontaneous or instinctual. Rather, "piety" implies serious
religious devotion, often marked by repeated and disciplined acts like daily prayer or
worship. By wishing for "natural piety," then, speaker wishes to feel an appreciation for
nature that is both spontaneous and practiced.
It is in nature, the poem argues, where one can find a sense of both wonder and comfort
at the same time. That he still feels the same joy when he sees a rainbow as an adult that
he felt as a child reassures the speaker that he is indeed still living and feeling. His life
will go on as it has gone before. Nature helps to remind the speaker that despite the many
changes life brings, there is something continuous and larger than himself to appreciate.
A rainbow is traditionally a symbol of hope, and that is how it's being used in this poem.
Rainbows are beautiful sights that show up after storms. As such, they signify the passing of a
storm—symbolically, of turmoil and suffering—and the start of a calmer, lovelier period. The
mention of the rainbow is also perhaps a subtle allusion to the story of Noah in the Book of
Genesis, in which God sends a rainbow as a promise to never again destroy the earth with floods.
The rainbow in "My Heart Leaps Up" fills the speaker with a sense of hope and promise. It
reassures him that what gave him joy and wonder as a child still gives him joy, in turn allowing
him to feel connected to the natural world and connected to his future.

Lines 1-2
The first two lines of "My Heart Leaps Up" establish the event that prompts the rest of
the poem: the speaker relates how his heart "leaps up" when he sees a rainbow. Rather
than simply say outright that seeing a rainbow makes the speaker feel happy or joyful, he
uses personification to describe his reaction. Hearts, while one of the most essential
parts of the human body, do not themselves "leap." By animating his heart, however, the
speaker is able to portray the sudden bliss the sight of a rainbow causes him to feel. It
also introduces a sense of playfulness and innocence—qualities often associated with
childhood—from the very start of the poem.
The heart's leaping also suggests that the speaker's joyful reaction is not planned, but
rather is spontaneous, unbridled, and perhaps even inevitable. That is, the speaker cannot
help but be happy upon seeing a rainbow, because his heart seems to respond of its own
accord.
In turn, the inevitability of the speaker's reaction to the rainbow is reinforced by the
musicality of the poem's language. These opening lines
employ assonance and consonance to links the words together. Note how the many long
/ee/ sounds, when spoken aloud, stretch the mouth as in a smile, while the plosive /b/ and
/p/ sounds add a bouncy rhythm to these lines:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
This repetition of similar sounds gives the poem the impression that the words inevitably
belong together, reinforcing the naturalness, or honesty, of the poet's response to the
rainbow. The poem also employs enjambment between these first two lines. The reader
easily glides past the first line break into the second line to find out what, in particular,
makes the poet's heart leap so.
Additionally, the first line establishes the meter of the poem as iambic tetrameter. This
just means that each line contains four iambs, poetic feet with an unstressed-stressed, da
DUM, beat pattern:
My heart leaps up when I behold
The second foot of the first line might also be scanned as a spondee, or two stressed beats
in a row—"leaps up," which emphasizes the joyous bounce of this movement. The meter
is broken slightly in the second line, however, as it only has a set of three stressed and
unstressed syllables (making it a line of iambic trimeter):
A rainbow in the sky:
This break in the meter evokes the poet's heart skipping a beat.
My Heart Leaps Up: The Poem with Analysis and Meaning
Classics
Wordsworth and his love for nature are well-known. The poet saw magnificence in the
simplest of things. And his ability to present simple things in such a beautiful way made
his poems enjoyable read. My Heart Leaps Up is one such poem that shows his love for
the things in nature that we usually don’t give much thought to.
Let’s look at the poem and see what makes this poem great. We present here the
summary, analysis, significance, and all the poetic devices used in this poem. We shall
also explain the meaning of the most popular line from this poem; The Child is father of
the Man.
Before we get into the poem, a little about William Wordsworth. Wordsworth is one of
the most famous poets of all time and certainly the most famous poet from the
Romanticism movement. Almost all of his poems speak his love for nature and its beauty.
I think these lines introduce Wordsworth aptly;
If you want to experience nature’s beauty, go outside your house and talk a walk in
the park or the woods. If you want to experience nature from inside your house,
read Wordsworth’s poetry.
Wordsrum
My Heart Leaps Up
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
Summary and analysis
My Heart Leaps Up is a very short and simple poem. One would say that it is very unlike
the works of Wordsworth because there is no heavy usage of metaphors, no grand
rhetorics has been used. It is just Wordsworth telling what he feels like about nature and
the influence it has over him, from childhood to death.
The poem starts with the praise of the sight of a rainbow. Wordsworth says that his heart
leaps up (which means that it is filled with joy and excitement) when he sees a rainbow.
He felt the same when he saw the rainbow when he was a child and even when he has
grown up to be a man, the familiar joy takes hold of his heart when he sees the rainbow.
The next part of the poem is about the poet’s desire to have this same desire and love for
the little things in nature. He says that he wants to be equally jovial at the sight of the
rainbow when he grows old. He even goes as far as to say that he’d rather be dead than to
lose the love and excitement he has for nature. For him, it is not worth living of it isn’t
living in awe and love for nature.
In the last two lines, he says that he wants to live his life in love with nature. He wants to
have utter respect and love for nature. He uses the words “piety” in a religious sense. So
his love for nature is not just any love, but the love one has for the creator, a religious
love. He praises and loves nature as it deserves to be; as a creator. Nature is where we
have come from and where we’ll go into. So the love for nature is the highest love for
Wordsworth.
My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth. Poem in under the Public Domain in US
and countries where Wordsrum operates
The Child is father of the Man
This line from the poem is perhaps the most famous part. So famous that many people
think that that is the name of the poem. Many album names, quotes, etc have been taken
from this particular line. But what does it mean? It means that whatever you are as a
child, you’ll be that as a man too.
What is the role of a father in a person’s life? He is the first teacher and mentor. A
father’s actions affect the child’s life in its entirety. The child grows to become the man
as molded by his father. The same is true for your childhood. The experiences you have
in those forming years will mold you into the man you’ll be in your later life.
You cannot teach or affect your childhood, just like the future cannot affect the past. This
is why the child is said to be the father of the man. And in this poem, it means that
Wordsworth was profoundly attached to nature in his childhood and he will always be the
same until his death.
Theme and literary devices
The theme of the poem is nature, growth, love, and life. The major theme is nature and
our connection with it. The poem shows how few things such as the rainbow are often
ignored by many because they are used to seeing it. It tells us about enjoying the
intricacies of nature and never letting them go. We all enjoyed watching the rainbow or
flowers when we were children, but then what happened? Why did we abandon this
lesson from our childhood? This is what Wordsworth tries to convey through this poem.
‘My heart leaps up’, sometimes known as ‘The Rainbow’ is perhaps William
Wordsworth’s shortest great poem. In just nine lines, Wordsworth expresses a number of
the several features of Romanticism: a love of nature, the relationship between the natural
world and the individual self, and the importance of childhood in making the poet the
man he becomes, memorably expressed by Wordsworth’s statement that ‘The child is
father of the man’.
"My Heart Leaps Up", by William Wordsworth, is a poem that was written simply to express the poet's awe
and reverence for the beauty of the world surrounding him. The tone of the poem is passionate; Wordsworth
talks about how his heart "leaps" at the sight of a rainbow and exclaims how he would prefer death to losing
his appreciation for the beauty of nature. Wordsworth uses various rhythmic and stylistic techniques and
figurative images in this poem to convey his exuberant love of nature.
The rhythm, language and imagery of the poem help the reader to understand its message. The poem
begins with a pleasant flowing rhythm in the first five lines. The poet uses certain words and phrases in the
first two lines to uplift the reader's thoughts and emotions. Phrases such a "My heart leaps up" and "Rainbow
in the sky" are meant to cause the reader's emotions to soar upward with the poet's as he describes his
exuberant appreciation for nature. In the third, fourth and fifth lines, the poet uses the technique of repetition,
changing only the tense of each line. Each of the three lines starts with the word "So" and then uses the past,
present, and future tense, respectively, to continue the thought- "So was it", "So is it", and "So be it". The use
of similar language in each line gives the sense of continuity and sameness which the poet desires to have
throughout his life in terms of his own appreciation of nature.
In the fifth and sixth lines, the gentle and uplifting flow of the poem changes abruptly when the poet
vows to retain his love of nature even in his old age. He says, "So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!"
The abrupt language, the use of the exclamation point, and the indentation of this line give the reader a vivid
picture of how meaningless his life would be if the poet were to lose his appreciation for the beauty around
him.