English project last.pptx

school project

1. THE LAST LEAF BY O. HENRY BY: M.G.MRITHYUNJHAI

2. The Last Leaf" is a short story Author: O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) Published in 1907 in “The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories”. The Last Leaf" was written by William Sydney Porter and published under his alias, O. Henry. THE LAST LEAF

3. ABOUT THE AUTHOR William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) September 11, 1862- June 4, 1910 Master of surprise endings who wrote about life of ordinary people in New York

4. CHARACTERS OF THE LAST LEAF Sue , a young artist originally from Maine, is Johnsy’s roommate . She takes care of Johnsy while Johnsy is sick. Johnsy  is a young artist from California. She contracts pneumonia at the beginning of the story and is given a slim chance of survival. Mr. Behrman , a painter, is Sue and Johnsy’s neighbour . When Sue tells him that Johnsy believes she will die when the last leaf falls, he goes out in a storm to paint the leaf on the wall, developing severe pneumonia in the process.

5. Synopsis/Summary: Johnsy and Sue are artists who move into Greenwich Village in New York City. As Winter approaches and the weather gets colder, Johnsy becomes ill with pneumonia. She gets so sick that she believes that when the last leaf falls from the vine outside her window, she will die.

6. An old artist, named Behrman, who lives in the same building as the girls, braves a storm one night to paint a leaf on the wall — a leaf that will never fall. Cold and wet from painting in the icy rain, he catches pneumonia and dies. This gives Johnsy the hope to survive her illness, and it also creates the masterpiece Behrman had always dreamed of painting.

7. THEME OF LESSON O. Henry's “The Last Leaf” centers around three struggling artists in Greenwich Village. The story is set in the midst of a pneumonia outbreak, and at the start of the story, Johnsy , a young painter, is afflicted with the illness. A doctor places her odds of survival at one in ten, in part because Johnsy is dispirited, convinced as she is that she is going to die. She has taken to watching a vine outside her window, watching its leaves get blown off in the wind .

8. She intends to survive only until the last leaf is blown away, after which point she will presumably expire. Concerned by Johnsy’s dire outlook, her friends Sue and Behrman encourage her to hold onto life. Eventually, as Johnsy continues watching the last leaf endure against the wind for several days, her own desire to live is rekindled. By the end of the story, she has beaten the odds and recovered, despite the doctor’s grim odds. The story suggests that even small odds must be seized, and hope must be sustained.

9. Johnsy’s struggles are thematically intertwined with those of Behrman, an old, failed artist who continues to cling to dreams of someday painting his masterpiece. As the end of the story reveals, Behrman paints a copy of the last leaf onto the vine, thereby inspiring Johnsy to live. At the end of his life, Behrman has painted his masterpiece, and so he achieves an aesthetic triumph, just as Johnsy achieves the triumph of her recovery.

10. THANK YOU