Loss In 'Gwilans Harp And' The Last Leaf

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Loss can be a powerful thing that can control people, but also help people learn. Loss is an important theme in “Gwilans Harp,” by Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Washwoman,” by Isaac Bashevis Singer, and “The Last Leaf,” by O. Henry. It changes and affects many if not all of the characters choices. Every character reacted in a different way. They also all learned a lesson from the loss.

In “The Last Leaf” many characters experienced loss. Although in different ways, these losses affected them greatly. One example is Sue facing the possibility of losing her best friend to Pneumonia, a prospect that horrified her. Johnsy acted as a part of her everyday life in so many ways that Sue most likely did not know what she would do without her. Johnsy almost lost something, though not something tangible. In the story, Johnsy loses all hope and will to live, almost to the point of giving up and dying. Johnsy realizes that she should not wish to die, and tells Sue “someday I hope to paint the Bay of Naples” (Henry). Both women lose a friend and protector when Behrman died, a man who watched over the girls from …show more content…
She loses her harp, her most valuable possession, the instrument that basically has directed the course of her life for as long as she could remember. She also lost her husband; the person that gave her life meaning after her harp broke. Then, to make her horrible situation worse, she broke her wrist and contracted arthritis in her wrist, preventing her from playing other harps she had obtained. All these losses devastated her, but she still kept going and did not give up. She made the best of her situation and since she could not play another instrument she decided “There’s nothing left for me to do but sing. I never could sing. But you play the instrument you have” (LeGuin). Gwilan choose to focus on the bright side of life instead of focusing on the bad things that had
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