Paul's Case

“Paul’s Case,” by Willa Cather, is about a teenage boy named Paul who despises his common, dreary life. He lives on Cordelia Street in Pittsburgh. Paul sees his home on Cordelia Street to be one of “ugliness and commonness” characterized by his room with “horrible yellow wallpaper,” an old bathroom with a grimy zinc tub and dripping spigots, and cooking odors that stayed in your clothes and on your hands. Instead, he dreams of a life filled with the trappings of wealth and royalty where one lives in palaces in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean, or plays in Monte Carlo. He sees this life filled with beauty, art, music, and flowers. When Paul’s only link to the life he imagines, his job at the Carnegie Theatre, is taken away, Paul steals from his new employer, and escapes to New York to live the life he feels he naturally belongs to. After a week of living like a king, Paul is out of money, and he realizes that he must either return to the depression and monotony ...