Loss Revealed In The Last Leaf

In the short-stories “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry, “The Washwoman” by Isaac Singer, and “Gwilan’s Harp by Ursula K. LeGuin, all of the characters struggle with many losses. One of the main and most apparent loss is life in each story. In “The Last Leaf”, ironically, a failure of a painter, Old Behrman dies, when it is least expected. Behrman was not respected, but his death leads the reader to instantly admire him for his brave attempt to save someone he loved. “Gwilan’s Harp” displays a loss of life when a talented harper named Gwilan losses her husband, Torm. After losing her beloved harp and husband, Gwilan thinks she has nothing left in the world to love, but later she discovers a hidden treasure. In “The Washwoman” an honored and …show more content…
Set during winter in Poland, a middleclass Jewish family develops a strong friendship with a much-admired and wise, Gentile washwoman. After the washwoman collects the family’s enormous load of load of laundry and walks down the road to her home, the family senses that she will might never return. The washwoman does not return for a few months and the family mourns the loss of her and their laundry, but on an especially frosty day, the washwoman finally returns, and with the laundry. “Under the bundle tottered the old woman, her face as white as a linen sheet…It was as though a corpse had entered the room” (Singer). She tells the family how she has been severely sick and explains that the laundry would not let her die in peace if she had not returned it and later dies. Even through the hardest of circumstances, the washwoman holds on and …show more content…
LeGuin, there is yet another loss of life that devastates the characters. After she breaks her wrist in an accident, Gwilan’s harp breaks and she marries a man named Torm because they both love music. Later, after raising two sons and suffering through the arthritis in her wrist that broke in the accident, she can no longer play her harp. Gwilan and Torm have a long-lasting marriage and then Torm dies and she is left alone. “The people of the household wakened in their beds and heard her singing, all but Torm; but he knew that tune already” (LeGuin). Only after he died did she realize her exasperation and her need for the harp even though she had to find herself in order have satisfaction. She finds herself through her singing in the