Writing essays: the new perspective of Cather’s story, the case of Paul

In analyzing Willa Cather’s short story “Paul’s Case,” we must remember that it is more than twice as long as Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and more than three times as long as Joyce’s “Clay.” So, unsurprisingly, the length of the story provides plenty of opportunity for richness of detail and some slack involving the use of the old view’s strong value declaration and the new view’s inversion at the end of the story. history. When you write your essay about history, keep this in mind.

The good news: Despite all that rich detail, the clarity of the new central view in Paul’s case he still finds a way to make this long and richly detailed story understandable.

Step 1: At the beginning of a short story, the main character makes or refers to a strong statement of value, an old vision.

As the story begins, Paul is in a meeting with his school’s principal and several of his teachers, being interviewed to see if he should be allowed out of his suspension and back in school.When asked by the principal why he was there, Paul said, quite politely, that he wanted to go back to school. This was a lie, but Paul was quite accused of lying; he found it, in fact, indispensable to overcome the friction.

Paul really didn’t want to go back to school because he didn’t like or respect anyone there. The principal and the teachers, who did not like the idea either, formed a ring of torturers about Paul while they interviewed him, peppering him with hostile questions.

The narrator expresses his negative evaluation and attitude towards Paul in a strong value statement:

Your teachers…[stated] their respective charges… with such rancor and grievance… this was not an ordinary case….

A strong, memorable and vivid symbol is also mentioned:His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and flippant red carnation flower.

After Paul left the meeting, having been accepted back into the school by the principal, a teacher made a second strong value statement about Paul: I really don’t think that smile of his comes from insolence at all; there’s something kind of haunted about it. There’s something wrong with the guy.

Up to this point, we have several strong value statements about Paul, seen through the eyes of his teachers and principal. We have been told that

• Paul was pretty used to lying and he needed it to get over the friction.
• Paul’s was not a typical case.
• Paul has a kind of hysterically defiant and dismissive attitude.
• Paul’s whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his extravagant red carnation.
• There is something wrong with Pablo.

And now we have acquired two solid parts of the strong value statement of the old vision:

…not a usual case…something’s wrong with the guy.

The final part of the strong value statement of the above vision does not occur until the middle section of the story. (Speaking of slack in using the old view-new view relationship!)

When Paul was expelled from school, his father put him to work as a clerk at a company called Denny and Carson’s. His father also closed Paul’s access to Carnegie Hall and the theater group. The members of the theater company were very funny when they learned of Paul’s many creative stories involving them, and their assessment meets the final part of the old vision’s strong value statement: They agreed with the faculty and with his father that Paul’s case was bad.

Now we can see all the parts of the strong value declaration:

• This was not a usual case.
• There is something wrong with Pablo.
• Paul’s was a bad case.

And since that ties in nicely with the title of the story, on the old point of view I rest my — errr, Paul’s case.

Step 2: In the middle of a short story, the old view is supported or undermined with descriptions, conflicts, and resolutions that shape the new view at the end.

DESCRIPTION: A description plays an important role in supporting the old view. Paul lived on Cordelia Street, and after the nightly concerts, Paul never walked up Cordelia Street without a chill of disgust. He approached it with the desperate feeling of defeat, the hopeless feeling of sinking forever into ugliness and coarseness that he had always had when he came home. He experienced all the physical depression that follows an orgy; the disgust of respectable beds, of common food, of a house permeated by the smells of the kitchen.

The description and the street name do not match. Cordelia is the name of the rejected daughter in Shakespeare’s play, “King Lear.” Paul clearly feels rejected by her father, as Cordelia does by hers. And Paul, in turn, rejects the poverty of his home, the simplicity of his life and the boredom of his life at school, preferring the exotic and unreal life of art, music and theater to the harsh realities of his life. real.

CONFLICT: From various incidents, we find conflicts that support the above point of view as Paul deals with his father’s anger and rejection by constantly lying to him about why he’s home late, where he’s been, or where he’s going. For example, one Sunday he can’t stand his ugly house, so he tells his father that he is going to study at a friend’s house.

RESOLUTION: But instead, he goes to hang out with his friend, Charley Edwards, the youth leader of the permanent joint-stock company that performed in one of the downtown theaters. So Paul resolved his conflicts by lying, getting out of reality, and associating with people who live the unreal and exotic life of art, music, and theater: Things got worse and worse with Paul at school. In his eagerness to let his instructors know how much he despised them and his homilies, and how much they appreciated him elsewhere, he mentioned once or twice that he had no time to waste time with theorems; adding, with a movement of his eyebrows and a touch of that nervous bravado that so perplexed them, that he was helping the people in the joint-stock company; They were old friends of his.

CONFLICT: Paul was expelled from school and his father put him to work as a clerk at a company called Denny and Carson’s. His father also closed Paul’s access to Carnegie Hall and the theater group. Paul hated and internally resisted the situation.

RESOLUTION: With his real fantasy life closed to him, Paul resolves his conflict by lying (as usual, out of reality) about a deposit he was supposed to make for his employer, stealing some three thousand dollars. And he went to New York to live the life of the gloriously rich. In those days, three thousand dollars went a long way.

Step 3. At the end of a short story, a new inverse view of the old one is usually revealed.

At the end of the story, Paul has gone to New York, where he is surrounded by many people, a kind of a ring of fans who gives him respect, the other way around torturers ring at the beginning of the story, although the respect at the end is based on his fake and stolen wealth. And Paul plays his new role by showing his own respect to everyone in New York at the end, the complete opposite of how he had been treating others flippantly at the beginning of the story.

The title, “The Case of Paul”, and the use of not a usual case Y a bad case at the beginning and in the middle they all refer to something never specifically verbalized within the story. But the meaning is shown very clearly: Paul has problems growing up, with school, with home, with identity, with finding himself and with belonging.

Actually, it is not unusual for a young person to have such problems growing up. In Paul’s case, however, it was not a usual case — it was more than that, it was a bad box. But the ending reveals that Paul cash register it was much worse than just bad: it was deadly, it was fatal, since it ended with Paul’s suicide. So we see that the end of the story emphasizes a Drastic expansion of the previous view. to a new view you are adding, not just reversing, showing that the cash register it was far more serious and far more dangerous or evil than anyone had realized or imagined.

On the other hand, at the beginning of the story, Paul was daydreaming about his fantasies about the theater, while at the end of the story he was actually living the privileged life of the respected rich, if only for a short time, no. just fantasize about it. That investment is what counted most, at least from Paul’s point of view.

Whether you choose in your essay to emphasize the reversal of Paul’s new view of the situation or the reversal of his teachers, his father, and others at the end, our analysis of the core of the new view provides the lens through which we can clearly see all the details to the new investment view and enlargement at the end.