Motivation In Paul's Case By Willa Cather

A short story is designed to capture the reader's attention by telling a well thought-out fictional tale in only a few scenes. A good example is "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather. "Paul's Case" is a very interesting story written around the 1900's about a young man's last few months of life. This essay will explain in deeper detail Paul's reasons on why he leaves home, what are his driving forces, what are his motivations, and why he kill himself.
The protagonist, Paul, is a trouble teenager who lives on Cordelia Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He hates everything about his school and his home. However, he loves his job as an usher at Carnegie Hall and the actors and actresses that perform. Paul feels that his teachers, friends, neighbors,

family, and even his father are beneath him and his colorful, rich "friends". As the story progress, Paul’s disgust for his teachers and his outrageous disruptions at school finally reached a breaking point when his father was informed of the appalling situation. After meeting with the principle, teachers, and members of the stock company, Paul's father withdrew him from school, sent him to work at Denny & Carson's, and banned him from his beloved Carnegie Hall and its employees. Paul's life was dramatically changed, however, the hatred towards the town and his father continued to grow. On a cold Friday in January, Paul cleverly took a thousand dollars in bank notes from his employer's weekly deposits, and by the end of the day, boarded a train to New York City.
There are many reasons why Paul leaves home. The first and foremost is completely obvious to the reader. He stole around a thousand dollars from his employer and when the bankbook is returned towards the beginning of the next week, everyone will know what he has done. The next reason is Paul's feelings of hatred and superiority towards Cordelia Street and the people that resided there. A good passage that explains this feeling states, "After each of these orgies of living he experienced all the physical depression which follows a debauch; the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odors; a shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, colorless mass of everyday existence; a morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers"(Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 19). The third and final reason he leaves his home was because "not once, but a hundred times, Paul had planned his entry into New York" (Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 41). This statement alone tells us that his plans where always to leave his dreaded home.
As we are reading this story, we realize that Paul's reasons to leave are not his driving forces. His driving forces are based on the passage that states, "It had been wonderfully simple; when they had shut him out of the theater and concert hall, when they had taken away his bone, the whole thing was virtually determined. The rest was a mere matter of opportunity." (Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 42) For most of Paul's life, he has felt alienated from society. However, at the theater and hall, he has received a certain level of acceptance because he performs well as an usher and has proven to be useful to Charley. To Paul, "his bone" was the one beautiful place that made him feel like the man he was meant to be. "The moment he inhaled the gassy, panty, dusty odor behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant, poetic things". (Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 29) Since that was ripped away from him, he basically just set back and played their game and waited until he had the opportunity to remove himself from that horrid conditions.
Paul's motivation is very simple.

It is power and money. He believes that money makes you powerful and respected by everyone. In the passage, “he was interested in the triumphs of these cash boys who had become famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy stage”, explains that he has no interest in working hard to make money, just interested in having money. (Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 25) Another motivation for Paul is that he believes that having money will solve all of his problems and enables him to never feel the humiliation he has felt all of his life. This statement is proven in the passages, "He felt now that his surroundings explained him. Nobody questioned the purple; he had only to wear it passively. He had only to glance down at his attire to reassure himself that here it would be impossible for anyone to humiliate him". (Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 52) Another example of Paul's misunderstanding of money is shown through his two hour shopping spree of buying expensive clothes, bags, silky underwear, and silver. Not to forget, he registered for a suite at the Waldorf and dined most evenings in the extravagant dining hall. Paul spent the stolen money without any care of what will happen when it was all gone and when he returned to being the boy from Cordelia

Street.
There are many reasons why Paul kills himself at the end of this short story.

The first and most emphases is the dark feeling of despair when he realizes that his father was coming to New York City. "It was to be worse than jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him finally and forever". (Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 57) From this statement, Paul finally accepts that is fate is to live on Cordelia Street and become what he despises the most; poor. Another important reason was that his craving for money and entrance into the upper class, "more than ever, money was everything, the wall that stood between all he loathed and all he wanted". (Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 61) Other important issues that were mentioned but not truly discussed where his homosexual tendencies and his mother’s death early in his childhood The final and most important reason Paul commits suicide is because he feels alone in a hostile world that does not understand him and his love of beautiful things, color, art, and music. "It occurred to him that all the flowers he had seen in the glass cases that first night must have gone the same way, long before this. It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it was a losing game in the end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which the world is run". (Kennedy & Gioia, “Paul’s Case,” para. 64) From this statement alone, Paul feels

that he has tried to live and revolt against the normal but at the end of his life, it was still a losing game.

Work Cited
Cather, Willa. "Paul's Case." The Literature Collection an Etext. By X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2013. 146-A-146. Print.