The Irony of Fate

            O Henry is an out of the box kind of writer. His stories was never dull, in fact they are never what you expected it to be. Readers tend to be amazed on how fresh his idea was and of how well he developed his story in a way that sometimes it’s scented through to the reader’s heart. One of the stories which manage to deliver the same aura is “The Last Leaf ” , a truly magnificent story of fate and irony.

            In the beginning of the short story, the author talks about how the streets have branched into places. He is figuratively referring to the place called Greenwich Village where arts are not look upon , in fact are somehow disregard. Yet, artists kept on coming there in search of a place for them to widen their horizon, to sell their work of art. The place where there are adequate supplies of arts stuff and houses for rent with a reasonable price to pay.

            This story was a set up in the early 20^th century, in a little district west of Washington Square. Living there are two young woman artists named Sue and Johnsy. They had made each other acquaintances in May of the same year and had decided to share a studio apartment. As the place was not well enough to hold such visit from the gigantic spread of Pneumonia in November, Johnsy got affected. She began to ill and had reached a near death from Pneumonia. She had lies in bed counting for the leaves from the ivy vine tree outside her window to wither to the ground. She was sure that her life will be over once the last leaf fall onto the ground.

            Like every good short story, there should be a hero, a savior who would come to turn things right. In this case Mr Berhman, Sue’s and Johnsy’s neighbor who lived below their apartment was the one, a typical hero of O Henry’s school of thought. The author intended it to be as imperceptible as possible. Sue had told him about Johnsy giving up on living and that she had leaved his life in the hand of the vine tree. One night, Johnsy was very sure the last leaf would fall.  Magically, after so many turbulent nights, the leaf was still intact. Little did they know that Mr Behrman have work his magic and created his first and final masterpiece.

            Some of the concealed  intention of the author  is to address the community where to some extent, neighbors are considered as trivial in the society but this community that O Henry is portraying shows a lot of care for one another. The author also revealed the fundamental aspects of death. Death waits for no one. Once your time came, you will die whether you like it or not. It has been fated and that is out of our breach. We cannot foresee nor could we delay our time. In a way, the author also reveal to us that being alive but with no will to live is just the same as being dead. They would be referred to as the living dead. For instance, through this story, Johnsy who seems to have a higher chance of dying at first had recovered while suddenly, Mr Behrman who had shown no sign of illness, suddenly died after only been exposed to pneumonia for three days.

            This story lingers on the irony of fate, on the fact that we need something to hold onto like a hope. When there is a hope, there is a will but in this case the hope here is in the form of the last leaf. Through that last leaf’s persistence that Johnsy finally had her will to live.  The story teaches us to never let fate get the upper hand, for instance Johnsy should have never let the leaf decide whether she should live or die. Fate is a normal blaming tool for people who discourage themselves of trying harder to change and to make the right choices in their life. For example, if you are born poor, would you consider yourself to be poor for the rest of your life or would you change it somehow. Sometimes, we see that it is easier for us to accept things that happen to us by blaming it on fate. It actually is not. It is our bad choices that had put us in our current state. Johnsy is a clear example of such cases.