Gwilan's Harp, The Washwoman, And The Last Leaf

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In our lives loss is a constant, a force that strikes undeserving people at seemingly unpredictable times. How we deal with it can decide how successful we are in life. The main characters of Gwilan’s Harp, The Washwoman, and The Last Leaf each face loss in their respective stories, not loss of life but of spirit. When you lose the ability or the will to do what you enjoy, the effects can be soul crushing. How each character overcomes their distressing circumstances and rediscovers what they love forms the backbone of all of these short stories

Gwilan’s Harp tells the tale of Gwilan a talented harpist whose life is fraught with loss and hardship. The low point of these setbacks comes when her treasured harp with which she gained much success is destroyed in a terrible accident. Gwilan becomes despondent and while she receives other harps, none can truly recapture the magical feeling of her harp. Her hopelessness only increases when her husband of many years and closest musical partner dies and she vows to destroy her harps, to “take them down at last and smash them on the hearthstone, crush them till they’re …show more content…
The young narrator of the story, his siblings, and his mother live in a small, predominately Jewish village in Poland and are serviced by an old and frail Gentile washwoman. The washwoman’s story in itself is tragic: her son is rich, but his relationship with her is strained and, as a result, she lives in poverty. As the story points out, “It was an affront not only to the old woman but to the entire institution of motherhood” (Singer). When the washwoman disappears with their clothes for many weeks, the family understands how much they rely on her work. It is revealed that the washwoman had fallen ill and, with no one to care for her, had become bedridden. She overcame her sickness one final time, to return the family’s clothing, before passing
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