Summary Of Paul's Case

Paul’s Case

The realist short story, Paul’s case: a study in temperament, written by Willa Sibert Cather, carries a distant tone as it reviews Paul’s case of suspension. Paul was a tall skinny lad who lived a normal life, although he himself thought it to be too banal. To escape from this reality paul would enclose himself in the Theatre and Arts, where he found comfort in being “important”. Paul strived to be viewed as such, so much he felt to lie to himself and others to make his life seem more momentous in nature. While Paul’s case is not a tale of romance, paul is characterized as delusional as well as a romantic through the use of diction.
Willa uses diction to portray Paul as a romantic throughout the short story, through defining paul's view of romance, and his life in the theatre. It is suggested paul believes “That indefinable air of achievement...made her [the soprano] a variable queen of romance.”, which shows paul's romanticism not being about love but rather about his idealized view on achievement. His position as a romantic is strengthened when the narrator expresses that

The narrator reveals that, “He[Paul] needed only the spark...that made his imagination master of his senses”. This information suggests that Paul could alter his reality and view the world in an altered way, with himself containing importance within such reality. This also explains why Paul is easily annoyed by the vapidity of school. It can even be inferred that Paul lived most of his life in a state of delusion, as he recalls that, “He could not remember a time when he had felt so at peace with himself.” This reveals that Paul, in his delusion, had felt discontent with himself, which accredits to his need to lie for attention. In fact his father issues can even stem from his delusion, shown by the multiple realities he envisages as he returns home one