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Deception In Paul's Case By Willa Cather

458 Words2 Pages

In “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather, Paul is characterized by his love of lying and misleading others, obsession with wealth and luxury, and his escape of his lower social class.

The action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth is the definition of deceit. As soon as the story begins, it states that “this was a lie, but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction.” (pg. 1, paragraph 3, lines 2-4) This quote informs the reader a lot about Paul immediately as lying to others is something that is frowned upon in today’s society but is something Paul casually does and does not seem to regret doing. The action of lying to someone isn’t the part concerning about Paul, but it is the idea of someone not feeling guilt while doing this. The reader’s portrayal of Paul’s character only gets worse from the beginning as it details his deceit nature and …show more content…

Paul’s obsession with achieving his dreams of luxury and riches took over throughout the entire short story which the reader is easy to catch onto when stated that “as the house filled, he grew more and more vivacious and animated, and the color came to his cheeks and lips.” (pg. 3, paragraph 5, lines 7-8) when referring to working at Carnegie Hall. Paul’s character views anything he considers a flaw in his life as something that can be fixed with being surrounded by luxury. Wealth resembles even more than that; it represents the opposite of his mundane lifestyle that he had been living up to the events captured in the short story. His addiction to a wealthier life causes to make poor decisions his character would have never thought to do in the first place such as steal and lie to his own parents. Addiction in this case doesn’t only just affect the host but the others around him in his life such as his family, his employer, and anyone else close to

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