June 12, Paul's Case

1. After you have finished reading, consider the opening two paragraphs of the story (on p. 235) in the same close reading manner we have used in class this week. What words does Cather use to describe Paul, the setting, the situation, etc? What is significant about that word choice? Paul was suave and smiling, his clothes, slightly outgrown, tan velvet overcoat collar, frayed and warn. He was somewhat of a dandy. This description pretty much characterizes Paul. A boy of meager means who still makes a show of it. The red carnations in his buttonhole, foreshadow the final scene of the story. The second paragraph describes his physical characteristics. Her description of him as abnormally tall and thin with high cramped shoulders, and a narrow chest. This alludes to his trait of insecurity. His abnormally large pupils and hysterically brilliant, glassy eyes give the image of a boy somewhat intoxicated with life. You definitely want to know more about who this boy is.
   

1. After his hearing at the school, Paul's feelings greatly differ from those of his teachers. Contrast Paul's attitude with that of his teachers after the interview is over. How do they feel? How does he feel? They felt haunted by their extreme distaste for the boy, they really felt that there was something just not right about him. They were genuinely concerned for him, I thought. Paul seemed almost indifferent to the whole matter. He was ready to get on with his night. He really only had the theater in mind.
   

1. What do you think it is about Paul's job at Carnegie Hall that completely changes his attitude about life? That he sees a world that seems to float above worldly concern. Without a mother, he has never felt that he belonged to his normal life, as it was. I think that in the soloist he sees the ideal of his mother.
   

1. Consider the description of Paul's bedroom (on p. 239) through a close reading. What here is significant about the room? about Paul? That it was such a normal room, and a part of that normal room was an embroidering done by his mother. I think the absence of his mother in his life made him feel disconnected from all things normal.

1. Why do you think Paul decides to steal the money and flee town? What is the final cause in this situation? He had a since of desperation. They had taken away the one thing he loved, and he was basically dead to himself without it. The intoxication of that world had replaced his mother, and his life, as he felt it, was there. A world without that was not worth living.
   

1. What is different for Paul in New York City? Why do you think he likes it so much there? He didn't have to pretend and lie to anyone about who he was. He didn't have to try and stand out to be different, to not be normal. He could put on his dandy garb and fall in with his people. It was, to him, the ultimate place for human fulfillment.
   

1. After what he learned from the newspaper, Paul made a decision about what to do. Why do you think he chose this? Instead of being arrested, what was going to happen to Paul if he were taken back to Pittsburgh? Why did he consider this "worse than jail"? He was going to become a special case for all of the do-gooders who wanted to help him to acclimate to beinga normal boy. They were basically going to take his "self" away.
   

• Vassar College professor and author Paul Russell has written:
  

  "Paul's Case" [is] a story often taught in American...schools as the tale of a sensitive, artistic young man who flees the constrictions of provincial life in order to experience in New York city all his pent-up aesthetic longings for art, beauty, and the artificial world of the theatre. But closer inspection reveals Paul to be steeped in the coded signs of the homosexual, from his red carnation to his apparent fling with a wild boy from San Francisco. … Cather herself would define as one of the principal qualities of her fiction "the inexplicable presence of the thing not named."

  1. Where are some of the other signs in the story, besides the ones Russell has written above, that Paul's "case" is that of having a minority sexual orientation, or at least exhibiting gender non-conformity? Think about the words Cather uses to describe Paul's actions, thoughts and personality. I had that exact thought! That helps explain why the traditional ideal of manly success did not appeal to him at all. It could explain his unusal artisic aethetic. His love of flowers. I'm sure there's more..