Paul's Case

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1905

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Literary Devices

Free Indirect Discourse

Free indirect discourse is a style of writing wherein the third-person narration seamlessly expresses the voice of a character, presenting unity between the narrative consciousness and that of the character. For example, when Paul is at last in New York, the narration states, “Everything was quite perfect; he was exactly the kind of boy he had always wanted to be” (482). The narration includes no introductory tag—such as “Paul thought”—but instead voices Paul’s subjective perspective as though it is simply the objective reality being narrated. While narrator and character remain distinct, it is as though one speaks through the other.

Because this narrative technique creates an intimate psychological sympathy between narration and character, and because an author sometimes expresses their own personal perspective through narration, there is sometimes an implicit equation of the author’s mind with the character’s. In these cases, the author uses the language of the character—which is informed by psychology, class, gender, race, and material conditions—to convey their own ideas. An authorial biographical reading of “Paul’s Case” sees Cather employing this method to great effect, particularly because her own background is so similar to that of her character. She describes Paul’s world from a third-person perspective that still allows her to express not only Paul’s feelings but also the way the world bends around him, and such a fusion between character and author suggests that the abstract, emotional elements of Paul’s life come from Cather’s own feelings on the world.

Tragedy

“Paul’s Case” has the earmarks of tragedy. It traces a promising boy’s life until his suicide. More than just having a sad ending, however, tragedies often give characters a taste of what they desire before coming to a catastrophic ending.

There is also something deterministic about tragedy, particularly in the Classical sense, where actions committed early in the narrative bring about a ruinous ending. For Paul, such fateful actions include his devil’s bargain to steal from his job to fund his life in New York. Instead of entering the city with a clean slate, Paul sets the gears in motion for tragedy to befall him; had he not stolen funds, he would not be a fugitive—but only with the funds can Paul attain his ideal life. Cather creates an interesting wrinkle to the tragedy in her decision to have Paul’s father clear up the legal issues of the theft; Paul’s suicide is done in fear not of jail time but of returning to his former life, which he sees as a worse fate than jail.

Cather aligns Paul’s tragic life with that of a flower. It was planted and grew before it had its glorious bloom. During Paul’s ephemeral bloom in New York, he lives a life of beauty. Unfortunately, all flowers wilt and die, just as Paul does.

Imagery

Throughout the story, Cather strategically creates florid imagery through her expressive yet tight prose. Writers almost always attempt to create vivid imagery in the mind of the reader, but here it reinforces one of Cather’s main themes: the variance between Paul’s different worlds, ideal and real.

In Pittsburgh, the imagery is muted, with only a few cracks of color. Take, for example, the description of Paul returning home: “[A]s the rain beat in his face, Paul wondered whether he were destined always to shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it” (473). Paul’s uneasy relationship to his environment is clear in how he articulates his visual field, and this unease contrasts starkly with how he articulates the world of theater in Pittsburgh; watching a symphony, Paul “felt a sudden zest of life; the lights danced before his eyes and the concert hall blazed into unimaginable splendour” (471-72). This imagery aligns more with how Paul describes his surroundings in New York. However, there, Cather’s prose takes on even more lushness. As Paul exits his room into the hotel proper,

the music of the orchestra floated up the elevator shaft to greet him. As he stepped into the thronged corridor, he sank back into one of the chairs against the wall to get his breath. The lights, the chatter, the perfumes, the bewildering medley of colour [...] (483).

In this world, with this imagery constantly surrounding him, Paul feels himself for the first time.

Allegory

As stated prior, the story can function as a dual allegory—a story with a hidden meaning. The first is as an allegory for Cather’s own life, aspirations, and desires. Paul, like the author, moved from Pittsburgh to New York City to move in artistic communities. The second allegorical interpretation is that the story follows a gay man who, living in early 20th century, cannot safely live openly (this allegorical reading is outlined in the Story Analysis). Again, these two allegories are potentially interlocked, as there is conjecture that Cather herself was perhaps a gay woman.