最后一片落叶欧亨利评论

2022-07-11 21:09:16 文档大全网 [ 字体：小中大 ] [ 阅读： ]

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 英语短篇小说选读

学生姓名：李丹学号： 2007051258 班级： 200703 学院：外国语学院

任课教师：方岩

Comentary on O. Henry’s “The Last Leaf ”

O. Henry was the pseudonym of the American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910). O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.

O. Henry's stories are famous for their surprise endings, to the point that such an ending is often referred to as an "O. Henry ending." He was called the American answer to Guy de Maupassant. Both authors wrote twist endings, but O. Henry stories were much more playful and optimistic.

The short story "The Last Leaf" is written by American writer O. Henry. It tells a story about a young girl dying of pneumonia watches the leafs fall from a vine on a building out the window. She decides that when the last leaf drops, she too will die. An old man, their neighbour, is an artist and her older sister's tutor, and struggles to paint his masterpiece. One night, during a bad storm destined to tear the last leaf from the tree, the sister closes the curtains so as to prevent her sister from seeing it fall. Much to their surprise, on the next morning the leaf remains. In the night, the man had painted the leaf onto the wall with the vine, saving her life by sacrificing his own.

The story is warm and a little bit sad while reading, just like the feeling of O. Henry’s another story, "The Gift of the Magi"which is about a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. When reading the story, people would feel pity for all the characters, Johnsy, who is in bed because of illness, and Sue, who have to paint for making living, and old Behrman, who want to be an artist but because of reality, he never has a chance. And also the writer shows symthy to art and artist in this story. It reflects in the description for how Sue have to paint for making living and old Behrman’s introduction.

The characters in the story are all kind and artistic. Sue like painting, though she must panit for living. Johnsy is sentimental, even in illness, she would conect her life to the leaves on the vine and she always hopes to paint the Bay of Naples. Behrman never gave up his dream to paint a work of art and he protected the two young women in the studio apartment above him. This may also be the reason why he would panit the leaf for the girl. The story is plain and simple at first sight, the scenes are light and beautiful, the character are poor and weak, the plot develops peacefully, but it gives us a moving and surprising ending. But the ending is reasonable at the same time, bucause the writer has already given us clues. Like the story says Sue and Behrman looked out a window fearfully at the ivy vine together with Johnsy, and Behrman has ever made a joke: “Some day I will paint a masterpiece, and we shall all go away.” Sadly, it comes true at the end.

In my opinion, the writer want to show the magical power of art, it can save human’s soul as well as body. We need it actually. But the real situation may hurt the persuit for art, that really a tragedy.