Paul's Case Isolationism

In “Paul’s Case” and “The Garden Party,” two authors describe efforts by ripening young adults to shelter themselves from the horrors of everyday realities. Whereas Paul isolates himself the mediocrities present in the working class, Laura begins her struggle as spoiled and isolated in a mansion and, thus, tries to distance herself from her elitist family.
The oppression of mediocrity in all its guises and the narrowness of Paul’s surroundings in “Paul’s Case” leads Paul to hurl himself away from Cordelia Street. Cather implies the difficulty of achieving happiness for Paul, analogizing Paul’s struggle to that of a train. As Paul awaits the next escape from town, Cather writes, “The eastbound train was plowing through a January snowstorm.”

Similar to Paul’s longing to leave the dilapidated houses of Cordelia Street for Paradise, the train heads east towards the city, laboriously forcing itself through restrictive conditions. Paul’s idiosyncrasies cannot endure a world of judgment and, thus, Paul isolates himself. Cather, furthermore, heralds the dreaded Cordelia Street as an emblem of Paul’s austere belief in the mediocrity of the middle-class, indicating Paul’s drastic methods of self-isolation. Paul implies that the men sitting on the “cramped porches” are “pretending to be at ease,” indicting the working-class’s lifestyle deceptive and unsatisfactory. His dissatisfaction with real-life paragons of the rewarding nature of hard work leads him to yearn for a Paradise unfound in the dreaded Cordelia Street. Incongruously praising Paul’s expeditions alone as exciting “orgies of living,” Cather implies that Paul feels the most surrounded and content on his own.
Mansfield similarly draws on recurring elements of isolation in the protagonist’s life. Whereas Cather characterizes a boy’s isolated escape from the middle-class, Mansfield reveals Laura’s isolation in the upper class and her attempt to escape which further distances her from her family. In “The Garden Party” Mansfield lampoons the upper class’s narrowness of mind, characterizing Laura’s desire to escape stringent class distinctions as fleeting and superficial. Among the wealthy and privileged lie further unnecessary distinction displayed through superficial presentations of superiority. As Jose, “the butterfly,” makes her lengthy path downstairs, Mansfield reveals the downgrading necessary to permit Jose’s communication with her inferior sister Laura. Jose’s superlative existence as a butterfly in the sky distinguishes her from other members of the upper class due to her relative beauty and grace. Noting character’s distances from the ground, Mansfield provides a visual representation of Laura’s temporary ability to communicate with workers and the mansion’s barriers to class intermingling. As a workman “smiled down at her,” Mansfield reveals that Laura has a vantage on a ground unlike the rest of her family. While Laura’s sister must fly down to communicate with her, Laura’s vague fraternization with the servants offers her a unique perspective, unfound in the isolated mansion. Laura’s desire to escape the isolating mansion and bridge the gap between her and the workers, implying her irreverence for the homilies by which her family is run. Mansfield’s depiction of the Karaka-trees further indicates the removal of the mansion from the harsh realities of the world. Much like the Karaka-trees, the Sheridans have grown in solitary, away from the disturbing truths for those in the lower classes. Mansfield, like Cather, foreshadows Laura’s dissatisfaction with her surroundings, noting the trees lifting “their leaves and fruits to the sun,” stretching out toward something else, trying to rise from their isolation. The trees, like Laura, work toward something greater, seeking the sun to provide grow away from a sheltered home.
Although both “Paul’s Case” and “The Garden Party” touch on themes of isolation and the resulting disconnect with the outside world, the authors convey the character’s journeys in opposing ways.

In “Paul’s Case,” Cather highlights the protagonist‘s journey into isolation through his expeditions into the city. Contrastingly, “The Garden Party” indicts the isolation of an upper-class family and characterizes the attempt of the protagonist to distance herself from her family as phony and self-serving. Unlike Cather, Mansfield implies that Laura is unprepared to isolate herself from her family as she makes her way to the lower-level cottages. Laura describes “They were the greatest possible eyesore, and they had no right to be in that neighbourhood at all.” Laura’s entitlement before her journey the influence of her isolation on her perspective and corresponding ignorance. Her unwarranted exaggeration of the cottages as the “greatest possible eyesore” further implies her lack of knowledge outside of the mansion, denouncing anything aesthetically displeasing as intolerable. Although Laura praises herself for opening her eyes to a charity-case, Mansfield implies the callow aspects of Laura’s spoiled world-view. Meanwhile, Paul eagerly isolates himself, labelling loneliness as a Paradise unworthy to land-dwellers. While alone, however, Paul rids himself of his anxieties, his fear of the “the dark place into which he dared not look, but from which something seemed always to be watching him.” Although Paul perceives the disapproval of the bourgeois of Cordelia Street, he feels able to indulge himself while alone. Whereas the narrator in the first story reveals the relieving aspects of isolation for its protagonist, the narrator in the second story undercuts isolation as a breeding grounds for inescapable

ignorance.