The Last Leaf quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Where does "The Last Leaf" take place?

   • Correct answer: Greenwich Village, an artists' colony in lower Manhattan
   • Maine, the home state of one of the two young artists
   • Washington Square, a public park just east of the artists' colony
   • The East Side of Manhattan, where pneumonia struck victims by scores

   The story is set in Greenwich Village, a bohemian neighborhood in lower Manhattan where artists came seeking cheap rents, north windows, and Dutch attics.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Why does Johnsy believe she will die when the last ivy leaf falls?

   • Far from California, she has grown superstitious and wants the last leaf to send her home
   • Misled by Sue, she has heard the leaf total while delirious and quit watching the vine
   • Told by the doctor, she has begun to ask about cloak sleeves and count funeral carriages
   • Correct answer: Weakened by fever, she has lost the will to live and tied her fate to the leaf

   Fevered and far from home, Johnsy has surrendered her will to live. The doctor says patients who "count carriages in their funeral procession" rob medicine of half its power -- Johnsy has attached her fate to something she expects to end.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What are the odds the doctor gives Johnsy at the start of the story?

   • No chance at all
   • Correct answer: One chance in ten
   • One chance in five
   • One chance in two

   The doctor tells Sue Johnsy has "one chance in ten" -- and that chance depends entirely on her wanting to live.

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4. 4

   Question 4. How is old Behrman described before he paints his masterpiece?

   • A dedicated teacher who spent his life instructing the younger artists in the colony
   • A quiet recluse who avoided the other artists and rarely spoke to anyone
   • Correct answer: A failed painter who drank too much and always talked of a masterpiece he never began
   • A celebrated artist who had retired from painting and lived off his reputation

   Behrman is introduced as a failure: forty years wielding a brush without success, always promising a masterpiece but never starting it, drinking gin to excess. This makes his final act all the more heroic.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What does "Morbid" mean in this story?

   • Related to disease or a diseased state of the body
   • On the point of death; dying or already past recovery
   • Correct answer: Preoccupied with death or gloomy, unwholesome thoughts
   • Cheerful and wholesome, free of dark gloomy thoughts

   Sue tells Behrman that the fever has left Johnsy's mind "morbid" -- filled with a dark, unhealthy fixation on dying.

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6. 6

   Question 6. O. Henry describes pneumonia as "Mr. Pneumonia" -- an "icy-fingered" stranger stalking the colony. What literary device is this?

   • Alliteration -- using repeated consonant sounds for dramatic effect
   • Correct answer: Personification -- giving human qualities to a non-human thing
   • Foreshadowing -- hinting at the deaths that will follow later in the story
   • Metaphor -- comparing the disease directly to a cold winter storm

   Personification gives human characteristics to non-human things. By calling pneumonia "Mr. Pneumonia" with "icy fingers," O. Henry makes the disease feel like a predator stalking through Greenwich Village.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does the last ivy leaf symbolize for Johnsy?

   • The beauty of nature and its power to heal the sick
   • The passage of time and the aging of old Behrman below
   • The arrival of winter and the end of the artistic season in the colony
   • Correct answer: Her last remaining hold on life and her desire to keep living

   For Johnsy, the last leaf represents her own grip on life. She has decided that when it falls, she will die too -- making it a symbol of her remaining will to survive.

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8. 8

   Question 8. How long had Behrman's blank canvas been waiting on its easel for the first line of his masterpiece?

   • Correct answer: Twenty-five years
   • Forty years
   • Ten years
   • Fifteen years

   The blank canvas had been waiting twenty-five years -- a detail O. Henry uses to show just how long Behrman had been promising himself a masterpiece without ever beginning.

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9. 9

   Question 9. What is the central theme of "The Last Leaf"?

   • Correct answer: Self-sacrifice driven by love can restore hope and save a life
   • Old age and failure can be redeemed only through a single great achievement
   • Art is meaningless unless it hangs in a gallery and earns public recognition
   • Illness is caused by despair, and the only cure is friendship and community

   The central theme is self-sacrifice: Behrman braves a freezing rainstorm to paint a leaf that saves Johnsy's life, giving his own life in the process. O. Henry shows that love expressed through sacrifice is the most powerful force in the story.

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10. 10

    Question 10. How does Behrman's painted leaf qualify as a "masterpiece" in a way his unfinished canvas never could?

    • It is painted in the open air, which was considered the highest form of artistic achievement
    • It was admired by the other artists in the colony who recognized his hidden talent
    • Correct answer: Its only purpose is to save a life, making its human value greater than any gallery work
    • It displays superior technical skill that surpasses any painting he could have done on canvas

    O. Henry subverts the idea of a masterpiece. Behrman's painted leaf was never meant to be seen as art -- it was an anonymous act of love that saved Johnsy's life. The story argues that art serving a human purpose surpasses art created for fame.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What is the central situational irony in the ending of the story?

    • The painted leaf fools Johnsy but is immediately recognized as fake by the doctor
    • Sue discovers Behrman painted the leaf but chooses never to tell Johnsy the truth
    • Johnsy recovers but can never paint again, losing the career she sacrificed so much for
    • Correct answer: Behrman saves Johnsy from pneumonia but dies of pneumonia himself in doing so

    Situational irony: Behrman saves Johnsy from the very illness that kills him. He paints through a freezing rainstorm, contracts pneumonia, and dies -- while Johnsy, cured of her despair, recovers. The healer is destroyed by the disease he defeats in another.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does "Serrated" mean in this story?

    • Thoroughly soaked or filled to the fullest point
    • Correct answer: Having a jagged, saw-like edge with sharp notches
    • Smooth and even, without notches or teeth
    • Packed tightly together in crowded, even rows

    O. Henry describes the painted leaf as having "serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution" -- a precise, realistic detail that is part of why Johnsy believes the leaf is real.

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13. 13

    Question 13. Which detail in the story foreshadows Behrman's eventual act of painting the leaf?

    • Behrman's Michael Angelo's Moses beard, which suggests he has the soul of a great artist
    • The doctor's comment that Johnsy has "even chances" after the second night
    • Correct answer: Behrman and Sue peering fearfully out the window at the ivy vine together
    • Johnsy's wish to someday paint the Bay of Naples after she recovers

    When Sue visits Behrman, they both peer out the window at the vine "fearfully" without speaking. O. Henry plants the seed of Behrman's plan in that silent, shared moment of dread -- he has already decided what he will do.

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14. 14

    Question 14. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

    • Johnsy and Sue met in May and set up their shared studio.

      Happened

      They met in May at a shared dining table and discovered congenial tastes in art, chicory salad, and bishop sleeves -- and the joint studio resulted.

    • The doctor tells Sue that Johnsy has a one-in-ten chance of survival.

      Happened

      The doctor says she has "one chance in ten," and that chance depends on her wanting to live.

    • Behrman refuses to help Sue and tells her to leave his apartment.

      Didn't happen

      Behrman yells and protests, but he immediately agrees to go upstairs with Sue -- he was already ready to help.

    • The last ivy leaf falls during the stormy night while Johnsy sleeps.

      Happened

      The real last leaf does fall that night -- Behrman paints a replacement on the wall during the same storm.

    • Johnsy asks to see the Bay of Naples painting she was working on.

      Didn't happen

      Johnsy mentions she hopes to paint the Bay of Naples someday -- it is a future dream, not a painting she has made.

    • Behrman is found in his room with a lantern, a ladder, and brushes.

      Happened

      The janitor found Behrman helpless with pain, and nearby were a lantern, a ladder, and brushes with green and yellow paint -- the tools he used to paint the leaf.

    • Johnsy recovers completely before she learns the truth about the leaf.

      Happened

      The doctor declares Johnsy out of danger, and only then does Sue reveal that the leaf was Behrman's painting and that Behrman has died.

    • The doctor tells Behrman that Johnsy's survival depends on her willpower.

      Didn't happen

      The doctor tells this to Sue, not to Behrman. Sue later tells Behrman about Johnsy's fixation on the leaves.

    • Sue describes the last leaf as never fluttering or moving in the wind.

      Happened

      In the final revelation, Sue asks Johnsy if she ever wondered why the leaf never fluttered -- because it was painted on the brick wall.

    • Behrman had successfully sold several major paintings before moving to the colony.

      Didn't happen

      Behrman is described as a complete failure in art -- forty years without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe.

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15. 15

    Question 15. How does O. Henry characterize pneumonia at the opening of the story?

    • As a gentle visitor who takes the old but spares the young
    • Correct answer: As a ruthless, stalking figure with icy fingers who preys on the weak
    • As a silent, invisible force that strikes without warning or pattern
    • As a natural consequence of the artists' poverty and poor living conditions

    O. Henry personifies pneumonia as "Mr. Pneumonia" -- not chivalric, red-fisted, short-breathed -- a bully who strikes the vulnerable Johnsy unfairly. This vivid characterization immediately establishes the antagonist of the story.

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