Student Question
What are the implications of the title in "Paul's Case"? How does the last sentence impact the reader's focus?
Quick answer:
The implication of the title, "Paul's Case," is that Paul has or is a legal or medical problem to be solved. The last sentence of the story widens the reader's focus of vision to make the dead boy seem a tiny and insignificant object in a vast and indifferent world.
The title, "Paul's Case," immediately suggests that Paul has or is a problem, perhaps of a legal or medical nature. Lawyers and doctors talk about cases, and these cases are matters to be resolved in some way: exonerated or cured if things go well, condemned to punishment or declared terminal if not.
In fact, Paul's case as it is presented at the beginning of the story lies between the realms of law and medicine. He is appearing before the faculty of his high school "to account for his various misdemeanors." However, his teachers, the drawing master, in particular, believe that his conduct is not altogether voluntary and that there is something seriously wrong with him. This may mean that his "case" requires treatment rather than punishment.
The story ends suddenly and dramatically, as Paul throws himself in front of a train:
He felt something strike his chest, and that his body was being thrown swiftly through the air, on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his limbs were gently relaxed. Then, because the picture-making mechanism was crushed, the disturbing visions flashed into black, and Paul dropped back into the immense design of things.
The final sentence is a striking description of death. Paul's loss of sight is depicted in mechanical terms, and for a moment he sees nothing but blackness before he ceases to exist. His body becomes just another object among many instead of a conscious being. In cinematic terms, the reader's focus of vision pans out from Paul to the wider scene and the wider world, in which the troubled boy, his case over, is now an insignificant inanimate object.
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