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November 17, 2017
Paul’s Case: Setting as an antagonist
Alienation, the state or feeling of been isolated or not belonging to a group.Although alienation can lead to satisfaction for a few, it often drives to depression and deprivation of self- motivation for many others. In general, people who are alienated do not gain anything from separating from society, affecting them greatly. In the short story “Paul’s Case”, by Willa Cather, Paul’s conflict with the middle-class setting of Pittsburg precipitates persona stages of social alienation, emotional crisis, and tragically, suicide.Paul is a young boy with a peculiar style, not well appreciated by Pittsburg dwellers, which makes him feel out casted from the rest. In this narrative, each setting is introduced and described from Paul’s point of view, which makes the setting the quintessential element in the building of the drama. As the story develops, Paul’s feelings and social interaction are directly influenced by his surroundings affecting his state of mind in a continuous way that lead him to commit suicide. As the setting of the story moves from Paul’s conventional hometown to the astonishing city of New York, his persona changes from a dull attitude to a state of happiness never experienced before.
Paul’s Case takes place in Cordelia Street, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Pittsburg, in general, is portrayed, as a monotonous and depressingly common town, submerged by the smell of a little like cooking; a place of where any young boy would want to escape from; when the narrator describes it,
“It was a highly respectable street, where all the houses were exactly alike and where business men of moderate means begot and reared large families of children, […], all of whom were exactly alike as their homes, and of a piece with the monotony in which they lived.[…] After each of these orgies of living, he [Paul] experienced all the physical depression which follows a debauch: the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odors; a shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, colorless mass of everyday existence: a morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers.”
Paul feels unhappy and miserable in his hometown. He dislikes every single aspect of it except for one: Carnegie Hall. It is the only place that truly excites Paul making him feel alive and as if he really belongs somewhere. The narrator says,
“It was at the theater and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul’s fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love […] and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant, poetic things”
Paul considered the theater and Carnegie Hall as his escape from his unsatisfying life. Working as an usher allowed him to touch shoulders with those he admired, people that he considered role models.Paul loves working as an usher more than he likes to stay at home or hang out with his neighbors. He feels a sudden zest of life when a performance is about to begin and the lights go on and dance before his eyes and the concert hall blazes into unimaginable splendor; but as soon as a concert is over, Paul comes back to the reality that he is living as common teenage boy instead of enjoying the pleasures of life as the affluent people he knows do. This makes him “irritable and wretched” until he goes to sleep.
Paul did not have any intention of becoming a musician or being famous, he just fantasized of living as the performers he met. When he saw them entering luxury hotels he felt like he entered too. All he always dreamt of was wealth, power and a lavish lifestyle, which he could not find at Pittsburg. For that reason, he feels the urge ofa change of scene, and he decides to escape somewhere where he didn’t have to lie about who he was and set up a smile just to pretend, a place where he felt like he belonged to, a place like New York.In the city, no one judged neither the purple of his clothesnor the flowers in his buttonhole, he had only to wear it passively, reassuring himself that no one was able to let him feel down and humiliated. Paul finally felt like he was part of the bigger picture. His desire of being surrounded by luxury, money and influential people, being part of them and not just standing in the middle of the mayhem of the city, was finally satisfied.
New York City is described as “a wonderful stage winter-piece” which implies that Paul thinks of the city as a bigger and magnificent theater which reflects how much he likes it. It was even better than what he expected it.While in the city, Paul felt for the first time that his surroundings explained him. There was no more figure at the top of the stairs, no more yellow wallpaper adorning the bedroom, no more commonness, and no more Cordelia Street.Everything was quite perfect, Paul finally was the kind of boy he always wanted to be in the city he that he belonged to. The city was entirely magnificent. Paul experienced the hurry and toss of thousands of people as hot for pleasure as himself. He was astonished at the imposing view of the city. It was the “plot of all dramas, the text of all romances”, his dream brought to life.It was the lights, the flower stands on the corners contrasting with the white blanket that covered the city, the chatter, the bewildering medley of color, and the perfumes, that really impressed Paul. For a moment, he considered them his own people, Cordelia Street belonged to another time and country.Paul doubted the reality of his past.
Paul is a teenage boy not as typical as the boy his age. He is a thin, tall and pale “motherless lad” who lives a depressing life feeling alienated from society, because of his peculiar behavior which for most people in Pittsburgh is considered impertinent and even offensive. Hedreams of a perfect wealthy lifestyle and seeks for an opportunity to set himself apart of the commonness and simplicity that characterizes Pittsburgh.Paul’s disgust to Cordelia Street, his school, church and even his own house, specially his bedroom, set a major conflict in the story, in which Paul feels attacked by the yellow wallpaper of his room and judged by the pictures hanging above his head every night. Paul has temperamental problems and feels discomfort around most people that one might feel most comfortable with like his neighbors, classmates and even his own family. Because of the constant feeling that someone was watching him trying to detect something, Paul always smiled and lied, but he never lied for pleasure, “he lied to be noticed and admired”. Paul’s desire of a luxurious lifestyle is what makes him reject his reality and lie about who he is, and at the same time he seeks for an escape of the real life at Pittsburg.
Paul is young fellow who loves everything that comes along with a high class setting and power. He believes that he is entitled to do more than what life has given him, for that reason he decides to escape and try to materialize his dream. Paul is out casted because of his “strange” personality and at the same time he alienates himself from his ordinary lifestyle because of his strong desire of an exuberant and sumptuous lifestyle, surrounded by art, money and music. Paul like many others was unable to accept the reality of his daily life leading him to suffer the consequences of self-estrangement, which drove him to jump to his death from a Cliffside to the train tracks. As he fell, he realized the vastness of what he had left undone and what could have been but never will; so, Paul, lingered back into the origin and design of everything.