Paul's Case
Paul was a self-oriented boy, concerned with money, wealth, and glamour, raised in a Calvinist household that supported these ideals. Through my research I have decided that Paul's eventual fate was not any one person's fault. Paul was just as much to blame as his father and teachers for Paul's suicide.
Paul was never content with his house on Cordelia Street and was always dreaming about "movin' on up" while he worked at Carnegie Hall and watched the actors and actresses move about in their stately attire and live in the most luxurious of hotel suites. Because of this dream to get out of the area in which he lived, Paul hardly ever got along with his teachers and his father. The thought of taking full advantage of
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Paul's only chance, it seemed was to steal the money he needed and live off of it for as long as he could.
Paul stole more than $1000, enough to live for a month in New York City, at the time of the story, and only if spent cautiously. But, no... Paul would have none of that. It would have been a waste to have more money than he had ever seen in his life, and yet live just as he had throughout his life. He wanted to live in style, the way the rich folks did. So, Paul spent the money within a week on all the best clothes, the best food, the best hotel room, the best flowers, and the best life. The money disappeared within a week and Paul was forced to leave it all behind and return to the dreariness of middle class existence.
Paul's damaged psyche could not bear to return the living-dead life that he hoped he had left behind forever, so he removed the living part with the help of a very large, very loud locomotive.
Paul's father had abused him emotionally, and probably physically, throughout Paul's life. He did so much to Paul's flagging self-image that he had to boast to others to make himself feel big, when he felt tiny inside. When he finally achieved that "bigness" that he always wanted, the glamour of "the good life," his father found him out and took that away from him, or rather, made Paul give it up. This made Paul feel even smaller and made him feel that he would be better off dead. So Paul decided to make his life "better off" and
He realizes just like his father and his mother he is using drug and alcohol to cope with his pain is slowly killing them. Paul still didn’t know if he wants to live or die so he flirts with the idea of death, but he stops himself at the last second.
This event is a big change for Paul’s life. After Paul runs away from home, he becomes a famous magician in the
When Paul finds out that he was being tracked down, he uses what is left of the stolen money to escape into the countryside where he finds an overpass and ends up jumping in front of a train to end his life.
He went from being naive about his future and the outside world, to becoming a independent and wise young man who relies on himself to uphold his own responsibilities. The theme of freedom is woven into the story through Paul’s examples. He finds that he does not have to conform to what society thinks is correct. Paul is free to go out and seek a loan to buy his own land; he is free to be as ambitious as he wants, no matter what the cost is, both financially and figuratively. It does not matter what his heritage is, but rather what his character is like, and as we can see in the story, people respect that Paul is trustworthy and hardworking, therefore they give him a chance to have an equal shot at making a life for himself. We should take from Paul’s lessons and see that it does not matter where we come from, but rather what we make of ourselves and that we should have the chance to prove to the world that we can do whatever we want, as long as we put our minds to it, much like Paul did. All in all, Paul Logan endured a hard life, and in the beginning he was naive about life, but this shaped him into becoming the self-dependent, wise person he became in the
First of all, Paul’s parents have an immense part in creating the way in which Paul thinks about himself throughout the novel. For example in page 94, Bloor quotes, “Mom , you ruined my life at Lake Windsor Middle when you turned in that IEP.” This simple quote thoroughly proves that the act that Paul’s mom performed affected Paul
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
It was at the theatre and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and forgetting. The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odour behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant, poetic things. The moment the
in his quest to the live the life he always wanted, Paul not wanting to face his father and his true reality takes his own life by jumping in front of a train. He could not live with
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`s life is in chaos as he is attempting to uproot his entire life by creating a façade to appeal to the white upper-class. It is this façade, however, that gives Paul control in his life as he is finally able to belong to a family with the Kittredges. This imbalance in Paul`s life causes him to be an Other because he has changed his entire life to simply swindle wealthy whites.
Paul does not clearly, state that the Wall Street is corrupted but he makes the reader pin point to that direction without him actually saying it and makes the reader raise the question “why not”. Paul used emotional appeals that gets attention of the reader right away for example, “an ultimately morphed into the complex securities that brought the world financial system to its knees in 2008” (David, 2015). In addition, he uses creditable source like Michael Lewis, who “is a prolific non-fiction author who has written about the misdeeds and abuses of Wall Street for a quarter of a century” (David, 2015). Using the emotional appeals, reliable creditable sources and mainly giving the power to the reader, helps Paul’s prove his
In “Paul’s Case”, the theme is Many people live a superficial life focused on wealth and social position. An example of this from the story happens when Paul is in New York with the stolen money living the “high life” drinking, partying, and spending money. One night on this adventure of Paul’s he spends the day with a freshman at Yale he met. The two boys create a brief relationship and once the next day has come they part their ways and never see each other again (Cather 124-125). This brief relationship with the other boy reveal that Paul does not care about creating any meaningful relationships or even friendships with others, he is simply looking for a good time and anyone that can help him do that.
It is as if Paul lives in the sun and knowledge of the world, baring that burden while others in society live in darkness with slight sliver of light from the moon believing they know the world to its full extent when in reality they are blind and in the dark. This affects Paul since he possess ideas from another point of view that others have no clue about. This is important because without the knowledge that Paul posses, he would be like his none the wiser parents, which would affect the story a great deal. For example, on page 152, Paul tells his friend, “Don’t do this. Don’t come in here with attitude.” Paul knows how to adapt to the places around him and knows that by accepting the facts and the brunt of the blow, they will accept him begin to
stoned, beaten with rods, etc., I thought, Paul was shipwrecked, stoned, and beaten, and here you are finding it