THE LAST FLOWER by James Thurber

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio on December 8, 1894. One day while playing "William Tell" with them as youngsters, Thurber lost his sight in one eye when an arrow pierced it. Ultimately, he would go blind in both eyes, but that never stopped him from writing or drawing. He is one of the foremost American humorists of the 20th century, his inimitable wit and pithy prose spanned a breadth of genres, including short stories, modern commentary, fiction, children's fantasy, and letters.Thurber died on November 2, 1961. (Thurber House)

“Some people thought my drawings were done under water; others that they were done by moonlight. But mothers thought that I was a little child or that my drawings were done by my granddaughter. So they sent in their own children’s drawings to The New Yorker, and I was told to write these ladies, and I would write them all the same letter: ‘Your son can certainly draw as well as I can. The only trouble is he hasn’t been through as much.”

— Thurber on his drawings

THE LAST FLOWER

Facts

It was published in 1939

It was published two months after world war II started

The last flower was illustrated by James Thurber

Is a short story in a form of a parable

Short Summary 

The last flower starts narrating how world war XII destroyed everything that was known. Cities and towns were gone, nature was destroyed and with it forests and gardens disappeared. Art was also a victim of war, everything was gone.

Humans behaved worse than animals, so animals rejected them, even the dogs that were always faithful to humans were gone and wild animals turned against humans. All the great things on earth like music and books disappeared, humans were left alone just existing without purpose. Desolation went on for years and years until everyone forgot why they were fighting for and how it all ended.

Love was no longer alive, and humans grew cold to each other; until one day a girl found the last flower alive. 

 She ran to tell everyone, but no one listened, they were too numb to care, just one boy listened. So, they took care of the flower and soon it started to grow again, birds and bees came visit and soon more flowers and trees started to grow again.

Love reborn again and with it kids that learned to laugh and bring joy. Animals returned to the humans and humans discovered a way to create shelter, soon cities and towns were up and live was joyful again. But with all this new creation soldiers, captains, and generals were alive too. Humans started to grow apart wishing different lives, envying what others had. War started again but this time nothing was left. Just a man, a woman, and a flower.

ANALYSIS

Although this short story was published eighty-one years ago, just a few weeks after world war II started. It has a huge impact today The Last Flower represents today’s society and how we are destroying everything around us because we want more and more. We are not happy of what we have and although we can enjoy certain things now, we are running out of time. The world has submerged into chaos, fear runs wild in our brains pushing us to the edge so we cannot see what is happening around us. We are too blind to see that we are killing each other, and we are killing the only home we have.  

Sometimes we can see beyond our blindness and we start to worry about the damage we are doing but as soon we feel are out of danger we start to fight each other, to consume, to destroy. As humans we tend to forget the awful things that happen in the world too fast. There is a quote by George Santayana that goes "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," and portraits our condition, the thing is that we do not have a lot of oportunities left. 

The lesson that The Last Flower gives to us, is that we have cannot repeat the same story over and over again because we will end alone and sad in a broken world that gave us everything to live well and we waste it away.