Why is the story titled "Paul's Case"?
This story is called "Paul's Case "; a case is a situation that seems to require some investigation or action, or it can refer to the actual object—or person—to be investigated or considered. The story is subtitled "A Study in Temperament," indicating that Paul is an interesting, even baffling, person, and that the circumstances of his life, and death, seem to demand some investigation. For example, Paul faces suspension for his "various misdemeanors" and yet arrives for his meeting with school officials wearing a red carnation for a boutonniere. He strikes the principle and teachers as being "peculiarly offensive" in his demeanor; it has a lot to do with his perceived "insolence." His drawing teacher says of Paul, "There is something wrong about the fellow." Paul appreciates concerts and beauty, and he is "always irritable and wretched" afterwards. He wants a life of luxury and gorgeousness, and he will...
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do anything—even unscrupulous things—to attain it. He is not a monster, certainly, but he can do monstrous things. Such a person is an interesting case indeed, one worthy of our attempts to understand.
The title "Paul's Case" immediately evokes the idea of some kind of court or psychiatric case. The story revolves around Paul, who does commit a crime. He steals money and travels to New York to live a life of richness and grandeur. When he is caught, he commits suicide rather than return to his average, dreary life in Pittsburgh.
But the theme of the story turns to what drove Paul to act in such a way. It asks the question, is Paul just a "bad case" who has a deviant personality or is he driven by the pursuit of the American dream? He loves culture and beautiful art. So is he really immoral or just a person who loves illusion so much he loses his " grip on reality"?
What is the significance of the final sentence in "Paul's Case"?
Paul is a deeply troubled young man, hopelessly at odds with everyone and everything around him. He longs to escape from his relatively humble background and emulate the opulent lifestyles of the Pittsburgh captains of industry he so greatly admires. But instead of working hard to try and improve his lot in life, Paul retreats into a fantasy world, in which a superficial attachment to high art brings him closer—or so he thinks—to the charmed circle of the gilded elite. As he lacks the discipline or the application to make his dreams come true, Paul resorts to theft, stealing over $1,000 from his employers. With his ill-gotten gains, Paul takes off for New York, where he briefly lives out his fantasy as a wealthy young man-about-town.
But the money soon runs out, and Paul's plunged into despair. Aware that his crime has been discovered, he resolves to commit suicide. As we come to the end of the story, Paul's standing by a railroad track, ready to jump in the path of an oncoming locomotive. As soon as he makes the fatal jump, he immediately regrets his actions, but it's too late. As the train smashes into his body, Paul's "picture-making mechanism"—that is, his over-active imagination—is destroyed. Now, at the hour of his death, he's finally been deposited back into the real world he fought so hard to escape through his fantasies of wealth and social status.
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 above is that last sentence you mentioned. In this story, Paul is wrapped upon in his visions of a better life. He's trapped by the American dream, which has him convinced he can only lead a good and happy life if he is leading a socially successful and glamorous life. This dream can be compared to the moving pictures on a movie screen. The flash in front of his eyes, constantly, distracting Paul and distorting his reality. As he gets lost in the dream, he fails to understand that he is still just the same young man he always was. He begins to believe he has transcended into a man and a lifestyle of more notoriety.
However, this last sentence ends Paul's dream, and shows readers that it is a false and a destructive one. Paul "falls back into the design of things" because his reality was false. He was not meant to be of that higher social class, and it is not his world. He does not stand out; he is another person on another trip through life, and must sink back into the reality of his existence.
Why do you think Cather chose "Paul's Case" as the title for her story?
The word "case" in relation to Cather's story has connotations with the professional practice of psychology. As part of their work, psychologists will often produce and examine case studies of selected individuals, whose behavior can be analyzed in depth to improve our understanding of how the mind works.
Paul's story constitutes one such psychological case study. Here, we have a young man who displays abnormal psychological behavior. Deeply unhappy in his own skin, he prefers to inhabit a self-constructed fantasy world in which he is a cultivated, wealthy young man about town, someone who can rub shoulders with the social elite of Pittsburgh, whom he so much admires.
The main problem for Paul, however, is that it requires money, and lots of it, to sustain this mirage, and that's money he simply doesn't have. This leads him into deviant behavior, which itself could be the subject of a psychological case study, as he proceeds to steal from his employer in order to keep his little fantasy world alive.
Once the money runs out, however, and Paul is unable to keep up appearances, his whole world crashes down around his ears. With seemingly nothing left to live for, Paul kills himself. Paul's suicide and the motive for it would in itself provide considerable material for a psychological case study.