The Last Leaf

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the whole plot, including the ending.

Part 1: A studio and a window

Sue and Johnsy are two young painters who share a top-floor studio in Greenwich Village, a New York neighbourhood known for its artists. Their window looks out on a plain back yard and the blank side of a brick house about twenty feet away. An old ivy vine climbs part of that wall, and for a while the days are quiet and ordinary. Then the season turns, the leaves begin to fall one at a time, and the vine starts to thin. The room has no other view, so the wall and the vine quietly become the whole outside world for both friends. This part matters because the reader sees the vine first, long before anyone starts to count it.

Part 2: Counting the leaves

Johnsy catches pneumonia and is confined to her bed. At the first visit, the doctor gives Sue an honest but guarded estimate: her chance of recovery is about one in ten, and it depends a great deal on whether she wants to live. From the pillow, Johnsy can still see the ivy, and she begins counting the leaves that remain. Each one that drops feels to her like a countdown. She tells Sue that when the last one falls, she must go too. Sue tries to cheer her up, but Johnsy has settled on her belief and grows weaker. Sue begins to fear that her friend has simply stopped wanting to live. This part matters because it establishes the story's central idea: a belief, not only the illness, is pulling Johnsy down.

Part 3: The old painter downstairs

Downstairs lives Behrman, an old painter who is past sixty and has never found real success. He drinks, earns a little money by posing as a model for younger artists, and has talked for years about a masterpiece he never begins. When Sue tells him about Johnsy's fear, he scoffs at the idea that anyone would die over a falling leaf. After Sue insults him, he grudgingly agrees to pose for her. This part matters because Behrman is introduced as a man whose big words are not matched by any work.

Part 4: The storm

That evening, Behrman poses while Sue and he look out at the ivy in cold rain and snow. Later, a wind and rain storm breaks over the city and batters the window and the old brick wall. Johnsy keeps the same fear in her mind through the long hours. When the storm is over and dawn comes, one leaf is still hanging on the vine. It has not come loose, even after the wind and rain. It looks fragile, yet it holds on. For Johnsy, that single leaf becomes both a hope and a question she cannot yet answer. This part matters because the storm turns the vine into a test, and the reader, like Johnsy, has to wait to see the result.

Part 5: The leaf that stayed

In the morning Johnsy looks toward the window and sees that the last leaf is still there. She calls herself a bad girl for wanting to give up, and she decides that she wants to live. She asks for broth, and she watches Sue cook. An hour later she speaks of one day painting the Bay of Naples. The change is quiet. It comes through a simple request for food and the sight of her friend at work in the kitchen, not through any speech. That afternoon the doctor visits again. In the hall, he tells Sue that Johnsy's chances are now even, and that good nursing will help her win. This part matters because it marks the turning point of Johnsy's story, while the reader still does not know what the night has cost someone else.

Part 6: The doctor's news

In the same hall conversation, the doctor also speaks about the old painter downstairs. Behrman has caught pneumonia too, and the attack is serious. In the doctor's view, there is little hope for him. Johnsy does not hear this yet. The reader, though, is left with a question about what happened to the old painter on the night he posed in the cold rain and snow and the storm broke. This part matters because the mystery of the storm night begins to open at the very moment Johnsy turns toward life.

Part 7: Sue's account

The next day the doctor says Johnsy is out of danger. Then Sue tells her what has happened downstairs. Behrman died in the hospital that day, after being ill for only two days. The building's janitor, Sue explains, had found him on the morning after the storm, helpless in his room, his clothes soaked and icy. Nearby were a lantern that was still burning, a ladder that had been moved, and scattered brushes and a paint palette. This part matters because the old painter's last night reaches the reader through a friend's words rather than through a scene of its own.

Part 8: The masterpiece

Sue's final explanation follows. The leaf on the wall is not real at all. Behrman painted it there on the stormy night, and that is why it never stirred when the wind blew. The old painter who had talked for years about a masterpiece had, without anyone knowing, made one. The story closes on Sue's words about the leaf. This part matters because it changes what the whole story has been about: not only a girl's fear, but a quiet act of generosity.

Characters

• Sue: A young painter who shares the top-floor studio with Johnsy. She keeps the household going, cooks for her friend, and talks with the doctor when Johnsy loses hope. She is practical and steady, and much of the story's warmth comes through her.
• Johnsy (short for Joanna): A young painter who falls ill with pneumonia. She becomes convinced that her life is tied to the last ivy leaf outside her window. Her fear shapes the first half of the story, and her recovery opens the second.
• Behrman: An older painter, past sixty, who has not found success for decades. He drinks, earns money as an artist's model, and talks about a masterpiece he never starts. He is gruff and dismisses Johnsy's fear, but the story shows he has far more to offer than his reputation suggests.
• The doctor: The physician who treats Johnsy. He is never named. He gives Sue a guarded estimate of Johnsy's chances, first about one in ten and later even, and in the afternoon he tells Sue that Behrman has pneumonia too.
• The janitor: The building's caretaker, who is never named and never speaks directly in the story. He appears only in Sue's account, as the person who found Behrman ill and helpless in his room on the morning after the storm, which is how the reader learns what the old painter's night was like.

Writing about this book

A reading response does not need to retell the plot. Choose one moment that stayed with you, then ask why the author placed it where it sits. Some questions to start from are these. What does Johnsy's belief show about how fear works? Why does one leaf, rather than a bigger event, seem to decide everything? How does your view of Behrman change between the first scene and the last? What would the story feel like if it were told only from Johnsy's point of view?

Readers often find it useful to compare the two friends. Sue spends the story in practical action, while Johnsy spends most of it waiting. Ask yourself which of them you would rather be, and why the author may have set them side by side. The ending is also a good place to begin, because the final revelation changes how the earlier scenes read.

Pick one question, support it with two or three details from the text, and write your answer in your own words. Keep quotations short and say which part they come from. A strong response usually makes a clear claim in its first paragraph, gives a few examples in the middle, and closes with a thought that reaches beyond the plot.