Summing up the analysis of the story I want to say that this story helps to believe in kindness, love, friendship. O.Henry brilliantly uses the twist or surprise ending ( a technique that O. Henry is famous for ).It was the final realization that the last leaf was not real but a painting which seemed to have a magical healing power that renewed Johnsy's will to live and to defeat her pneumonia. Personification, symbolism and similes catch the reader’s attention and bring to us the main idea.