Unit 3 topic overview and key concepts

¶ … Cather's characterization of Paul, his imagination is theater. His imagined life is the theater that he has built with glitter and effects in a dream world that not only gave him comfort, but and also sustained him. The author uses Romance, alluding to Paul's idealized view of reality. He got a feeling of excitement from his escapades influenced by his deep desire to be at the Carnegie Hall where he revealed a "vivacious and animated" persona liberated by his environment and music. Theater at Carnegie Hall was true representation of the theater in his mind, the dream, the theater where music and art were the entrance to this portal of Romance. He lives for his weekends at Carnegie Hall and the theater, and school to him is trivial. Cather perfectly paints the picture of Paul's dream by writing; "the stage entrance of that theatre was for Paul the actual portal of Romance" She goes further to explain that no one knew the impact of the theater on Paul's life not even his close friend Charley Edwards. "It was very like the old stories that used to float about London of fabulously rich Jews, who had subterranean halls there; with palms, and fountains, and soft lamps, and richly appareled women who never saw the disenchanting light of London day." The author here reveals Paul's alienation from the real world, and the need for refuge. Cather draws a picture of a Paul with a religious dedication to this life the theater. She writes, "Paul had his secret temple... his bit of blue-and-white Mediterranean shore." This reveals how closely and tightly he held this dreamland she refers to as dome in air.

Paul's theater is the "pleasure dome" the alienation from the real world and the desire for refuge at the security money brings. Cather ironically reveals Paul's limited imagination the theater, modeled after the lobby of a first-class hotel. Paul manages to live his dream, the life of leisure and beauty. He enters what to him is his home where he belongs, New York City, luxury exemplified by the Waldorf Hotel. To Paul this life is worth the entire struggle and money makes it possible. His life in lap of luxury is cut short by the realization that his father is coming to New York to find him. Cather writes that Paul "dropped back into the immense design of things," suggesting that his death was destined to happen. Paul concludes the theater he knows there is the beginning and the end.

When Cather emphasizes in Paul's Case that "Perhaps it was because, in Paul's world, the natural nearly always wore the guise of ugliness, that a certain element of artificiality, seemed to him necessary in beauty" she reveals Paul's view of life. For him beauty is life and it can only possible in illusions. Paul is only alive and comfortable when in art galleries, the theater, the symphony, and the opera. To Paul, ordinary life is worse than jail and the escape only route is beauty found in paintings or listening to the opera, Paul "loses himself." Cather describes Art as a religion for Paul, theater as his secret temple, with all these his identity disappears and he synchronizes with his surroundings. Beauty fascinates Paul and frees him from the ugliness of the normal life.

Question 3(Optional 1)

Cather writes about Paul's red carnation Paul wears in the buttonhole of his shabby coat as he faces his teachers. The teachers interpret this as a sign of Paul's attitude; they refer to it as flippantly red, the scandalous red carnation. However, to him this red carnation was a symbol of fidelity to his dream. Therefore, cut flowers become a distinctive feature in Paul's Case and Cather uses them as symbolism to great effect in the story. She uses flowers to express Paul's character and his views of life. He wears violets in his buttonholes and despises those who don't as mundane revealing his outlandishness. He notes while in school that the "prosy male teachers whom he despised did not wear violets in their button-holes."