During a person’s lifetime, they set goals and dream about a perfect reality. These goals are known as ideals and they are, most of the time, an unattainable target. Ideals seem most prominent and possible during a person’s high school years, these are the years that a person is in the halfway point between imagination and reality. They can see their goals, but are not sure how to achieve them. These questions start a fire within that person, a drive, to fight for an ideal that they feel most strongly for. When this happens it can affect a person in a positive or negative way. One of the more positive ways is that with that drive a person creates a strong sense of determination, but on the other side when an individual sets their sights on …show more content…
Paul lives on Cordelia Street, right next to the minister, where everything and everyone is the same in their upbringing and mannerisms. In attempt to place himself on a higher pedestal, Paul is terribly disrespectful to his teachers. “...the contempt which they all knew he felt for them, and which he seemingly made not the least effort to conceal.” (171) Paul made the teachers uncomfortable, whenever they saw him outside of school they would avoid him at all costs. Specifically, Paul goes out of his way to make his English teacher feel unwelcome not only in school, when he strikes her, but also when he notices her at Carnegie Hall one night. Narrowing his eyes, Paul “had the feeling of wanting to put her out; what business had she here among all the fine people and gay colours” (173). Though he feels defensive, Paul has enough common sense to not cause a commotion in a place that he respects. Carnegie Hall is a tremendous contrast between Cordelia Street and Paul’s attitude regarding both reflects that. “The moment he turned into Cordelia Street he felt the waters close above his head.” (175) Paul’s disdain towards the street he lives on follows him home as well, as the house Paul lives in just amplified his attitude of “I’m better than you are”. Every time he reaches Cordelia Street and “The nearer he approached the …show more content…
In his mind, Paul is trapped in Pittsburgh but he has not thought of how to escape its concrete confines quite yet. He is very arts oriented and spends most of his time at Carnige Hall being an usher and dreaming about the performers exciting lives. When the symphony starts Paul sits in the very back row “with a long sigh of relief, and lost himself as he had done before the Rio.” (173) Paul would faithful spend all day at the hall being an usher if it meant being able to imagine himself in someone else's fantasies for a night. When the nights are over he trudges home, wishing he was following the carriage with the performers in it and enter their lavish lifestyle. To Paul, Pittsburgh is a living nightmare that soon he will escape from. One day Paul is trusted with some money and “From the time he slipped the banknotes into his pocket until he boarded the night train for New York, he had not known a moment's hesitation.” (181) This is Paul’s great escape and he feels light and free while wandering the streets of New York with all the fame and fortune down every corner. He thrives under the fancy lights, soft silk clothing, and the brightness of New York and he does not have a worry in the world, until one day when he picks up a newspaper and reads the headline news. Paul’s father is coming for him. From this point on Paul is in a frenzy; he tries to decided how long his money will last him, what will he do if
This event is a big change for Paul’s life. After Paul runs away from home, he becomes a famous magician in the
Returning, he came to the realization that Cordelia Street is New York City; it’s Chicago; it’s San Francisco; it’s Seattle. No matter where Paul decided to travel to, he would face people and experience obstacles extremely similar to those of Cordelia Street. There would still be people who reapply their daily facade to satisfy one another, people who fall from their once proposed ambitions, and places that will be full of nothing but uncertainty, misery, and heartbreak. Cordelia Street is one place plucked from a multitude of disappointments Paul faced, and would continue to, no matter how desperately he attempted to convince himself
the love and care he unknowingly needs. Paul takes on roles that disguise his own traits and turns him into what he believes to be a person nobody can say no to. When he takes on these roles, he
The only place Paul is able to escape his reality and unfulfilling life is at Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall is a haven for Paul and gives him the classy atmosphere of the arts that he lacks in his life. He has an usher job at Carnegie Hall and unlike his house and school, Paul enjoys going there to work. He is able to escape and be with the rich and attractive people that come to the hall.
Paul also openly criticizes conformity frequently throughout the story. Paul’s criticisms can be seen in his detailed observations of people and their routines. However, none of these criticisms compare to Paul’s hate for his home on Cordelia Street. Cather describes Cordeila Street, noting that all the houses are identical, as well as its inhabitants. Following the description of the street, Cather describes Paul’s hatred for his mediocrity plagued home is expressed: “Paul never went up Cordelia Street without a shudder of loathing… he approached it to-night with the nerveless sense of defeat, the hopeless feeling of sinking back forever into ugliness and commonness that he had always had when he came home”(Pg. 5). Later on in the story, while Paul is in New York and is contemplating his fear of being reprimanded for his actions, he constantly reminds himself of the painful existence that awaits him on Cordelia Street: “It was to be worse than jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him finally and forever. The grey monotony stretched before him in hopeless, unrelieved years”(Pg. 13). Cather seems to use Cordiela street as a all-encompassing metaphor for conformist society; and Paul’s individuality and hate for Cordiela Street serves as the contrasting element, in turn becoming the most
One theory, argued by Peter Gray, a research psychologist at Boston College, is that the rise in adolescent depression is due not only to the adolescent’s feeling of lack of control over his or her life but also a shift from intrinsic goals to extrinsic goals. Gray explains that teenagers in our modern society do not feel as if they have control over their lives even though it may appear that we do have more control over factors such as disease and wealth. Julien Rotter’s questionnaire is used to measure a person’s sense of control, and Gray points out that the scores of modern day indicate that the average young person in 2002 was more “external” than were “80% of the young people in the 1960’s.” This means that teenagers today have the attitude that what is supposed to happen will, indicating a sense of lack of control over a situation, which is one of the main reasons depression and anxiety occur. (Gray, Dramatic Rise) Along with this idea, Gray references Jean Twenge when he argues that there has been a shift from more personal goals to more worldly goals in teenagers. Twenge found that more adolescents are forming extrinsic goals, or “those that have to do with material rewards and other people’s judgments” rather than intrinsic goals which have to do with “one’s own development as a person.” Because
After being forced to leave his job as an usher at Carnegie Hall Paul gets a job working at Denny and Carson's office firm. He gets the money to go to New York City by taking the money he was supposed to deposit in the bank from Denny and Carson's deposit and pockets it. Paul arrives in New York and lives the luxurious life by buying fancy clothes and checking into a nice hotel. After eight days in New York his fun runs out when he discovers in the Pittsburgh papers that his father had reimbursed the firm and was coming to get him. "Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair, weak to the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was worse than jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him finally and forever" (Cather 11). After succeeding
Paul finally escaped the hostile world he lived in, but his money-bought romance did not last long. When he discovers that his theft has been made known in the new papers, and all the stolen money has ran out, he knew he had to go back to his real life. After a week of having the glamorized life he was longing for, Paul refused to go back to face the reality that he left behind in Pittsburgh. Paul knew he couldn’t go on forever in the City with no money in his pockets so he decided to give up on his own life. While going to get on his train that would bring him back to reality, Paul stepped out in front of it and killed himself.
During this time, Paul contemplates a plan to ask his father for a cab fare. He will tell his father that the money is to make it over to his friend’s house, when he is really planning on making his way to New York City. This escape to New York City is a way out of his life that he is struggling to get through. “The east-bound train was ploughing through a January snowstorm...” (Cather). Now, aboard a train to New Jersey, Paul is longing for the beauty of New York. After the train stops in Newark, Paul hopes to spend a night or two in town and then get on board another train that will take him to New York. The time part of the setting impacts the story greatly, since the story is based in the winter. Winter represents the end of things in literature and it is in this winter, that Paul goes on to commit suicide.
Paul has an obsession with the arts, which serve as either an outlet or cause for his individuality, while at the same time bringing a certain understanding about Paul's unique persona to the reader. Cather illustrates this obsession frequently; for example she writes: "It was not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, but the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and potent spirit within him; something that struggled there like the Genius in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman"(Pg. 3). However Paul's obsession with the arts is not necessarily healthy either, and serves almost as an addiction, as he has no desire to pursue a career in the arts. Although Paul seems to escape his daily struggle with conformity, and become lost in the dream world that these medias create for him, his desire to remain in a world of fantasy motivates him to lie and steal. This addiction is the reason Paul makes up stories in school about fantastic voyages he never takes, lying to his teachers, stealing money from "Denny & Carson's" (possibly a law firm?), and using the stolen money to pursue his fantasy: "what he wanted was to see, to be in the atmosphere [around the music and arts], float on the wave of it, to be carried out, blue league after blue league, away from everything."(Pg. 8) Even though Cather in some way justifies Paul's pursuit of his dreams through this addiction to the arts,
Yet another example of the brutalization and dehumanization of the soldiers caused by the war occurs during Paul’s leave. On leave, Paul decides to visit his hometown. While there, he finds it difficult to discuss the war and his experiences with anyone. Furthermore, Paul struggles to fit in at home: “I breathe deeply and say over to myself:– ‘You are at home, you are at home.’ But a sense of strangeness will not leave me; I cannot feel at home amongst these things. There is my mother, there is my sister, there my case of butterflies, and there the mahogany piano – but I am not myself there. There is a distance, a
Paul is an extremely distant individual, so the narrative presents parts of Paul's past and present with the use of nondiegetic elements and the unraveling motif. When Paul is first introduced, he is under a train holding his ears screaming "F***ing God!" indicating he is in a lot of pain. Later Paul and a maid are cleaning up Rose's blood in the bathroom. When Paul gazes out the window, he sees a woman sewing near her lover's crotch as he plays the saxophone.
Willa Cather introduces the audience to Paul who lives in two distinct worlds. The industrialized middle class neighbourhoods of Philadelphia. Contrasted by the beautiful world of theatre and art, at Carnegie hall. Paul feels trapped by the mundane existence of the middle class, and is drawn towards his idealized life. A life of quality and meaning, full of beautiful people and interesting things.
Well here it is, the biggest assignment of the Collegiate curriculum. The assignment that I have been informed of since Kindergarten. In my early years here, I would consider the good life consisting of making a great amount of money, having a massive house, retiring at forty, and having a wife and two kids. However, as I have matured throughout the years, the good life has become more about internal success, and a solid foundation for my future. Along with the maturity, came aspirations, both great and small, from graduating, to getting into madrigals, from finding a close group of friends, to getting to know a new student. These aspirations, regardless the outcome, success or failure, taught me a lesson, and directed me through early stages
Hope inspires and leads to a path that might have been unthinkable; however, society adds pressure upon students that tries to derail hope.