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Life At Home In Paul's Case By Willa Cather

745 Words3 Pages

Often, people feel out of place in a certain environment. Rarely is it ever that a person has this feeling in his own home. This is how Paul feels in Willa Cather’s story “Paul’s Case”. The main character Paul despises the life that he lives at home and at school. He feels as though the people around him cannot comprehend the feelings that he experiences. His fondness towards his home on Cordelia Street are much different than what he feels for Carnegie Hall, the stock theater, and New York City. No doubt, Paul has a strong feeling of resentment towards his home on Cordelia Street. He feels that life there is far too simple and that people do not truly live life to the fullest. To Paul, the pictures of Washington and Calvin and the …show more content…

“Not once, but a hundred times, Paul had planned this entry into New York” (Cather 185). It is the location that embodies all of his hopes and dreams. New York is a fancy place that is home to the greatest theaters in the world. Cordelia Street is boring, uniform and lifeless. New York City is unique, cultured and elegant. Its citizens appreciate the finer things in life, just as Paul does. This place is Paul’s escape from his boring life back in Pittsburgh. “He was now entirely rid of his nervous misgivings, of his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative desire to show himself different from his surroundings. He felt now that his surroundings explained him” (Cather 187).

Ultimately, all Paul wants to do is escape life on Cordelia Street. The boring life there is normal there is not suitable for him. He despises the people that live there because they have accepted the boring life that has been handed to them. He feels as though he is chained down in some way; as though he is not freely living life. The stock theater, Carnegie Hall, and New York City were all outlets that allow Paul to temporarily escape from his disappointing reality on Cordelia Street. Paul is able to taste this freedom, and he decides that he cannot go back to his boring

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They had fond, naive memories of their river back home, but they know that they can never return to that level of innocences again. Paul goes on to think that, “We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial.” This quote shows the physiological change

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Paul throughout the novel can see things his friends can see. He can see him getting recognition from people among him

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People change people. In the novel Tangerine, by Edward Bloor, Paul changes his attitude, perspective, and actions based on the character influences around him. Even though Paul starts off shy and timid of his older brother Erik, he learns that he must stand up for himself or Erik will always win, and as he is exposed to more characters and environments he begins to develop as a character to be more outspoken. Paul was the family Runt, constantly being ignored and overlooked. Paul could never speak of anything due to the fear of his brothers reaction “I didn’t know what else to say!

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If not for his moral obligation to help others, for his own self-preservation Paul tells them they have to call in favors to stay alive: “We can only save ourselves. Many of you know influential people abroad. You must call these people” (George and Pearson 6). While the hotel setting serves as a place of refuge for Tutsi refugees and shapes the actions of Paul, it is his personal beliefs and values that drive his actions to protect the refugees. If not, his own experiences and sense of moral obligation to help those in need are important factors that shape his character development.

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Anne Moody’s memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, documents life growing up in Mississippi during the 1960s. The book outlines her life through her childhood, high school days, college life, and while she was a part of the civil rights movement. In the memoir, Moody serves as a direct voice for herself and her fellow African American neighbors, whom were enduring continued unequal treatment, despite the rights they had won after the Civil War. Part one of, Coming of Age in Mississippi, begins on Mr. Carter’s plantation in Anne’s childhood.

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In Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case” we find a young boy struggling with this awful predicament; simply trying to find himself and that elusive yet glorious sense of belonging. “Paul’s Case” is a gibe at certain American traditions and too those people walking about' with closed

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Paul’s Case, as alluded to earlier is a story about a certain young man who is a Calvinist and he is clouded by feelings of not belonging to this life. According to the story he lived on a street named Cordelia located in Pittsburgh, and we are given an impression of a street cluttered with cookie cutter houses and city dwellers that seemed like suburbanites. According to the author, there was an aura of despair in that city. This same aura extended even to Paul’s own room. His life was a life of misery having been surrounded by a father that abused him, teachers that never cared and classmate that misunderstood him and this caused Paul to feel he is not worth to be in their presence or even company.

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Without ever uttering a single word, Charley Edwards possibly had the greatest positive and negative effect on Paul in the story Paul’s Case. Charley Edwards is a teen performer at the local theater, and Paul’s love interest. In one paragraph, Charley made Paul the happiest boy in the world; but in the next Paul became even more alone than he had ever been. How can the man, who never verbalizes a word, have such a profound and life altering impact on Paul?

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This shows that some people are willing to go as far as possible when they are grieving for a loved one. Paul portrays many emotions that lead the reader to believe that he is brimming with regret over his son. Paul does not mourn for his son’s death but he mourns for the time he did not get to spend with his son. This shows that Paul is in fact not soulless. Paul mourns that he was not able to talk to his son one last time: “The day before it happened.

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Near the end of Paul’s leave of absence, he felt isolated and full of regret, “I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless-I will never be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. ”(Remarque 185) This quote accentuates the narrator’s separation from his family, when he cries out “I ought never to have come here.”

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Willa Cather’s short story, “Paul’s Case” is about a young man who is determined to make his aspirations a reality by all means necessary. That meant being deceitful as a start of gaining control and social status and telling lies to get to where he felt like he belonged, but where did he belong? This desire was the beginning of a journey that would eventually leave him with nothing. There is something unusual about Paul, something that can only be explained by his demeanor and actions throughout the story. With that said, I intend to construct a complete character analysis of Paul as he searches for satisfaction.

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In life, sometimes being alone isn’t all that bad, but Paul really seemed to enjoy it. He considered himself an individualist and alienated himself from others by exhibiting disrespect and contempt

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