Paul's Case: The Unconventional Desire for Wealth

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In Paul’s Case, Willa Cather writes about a young man's unhappiness with his lifestyle, he is awkward, does not fit into his skin different and does not fit into society,his desire to have to more than what he already and to leave Cornelia street to live a lifestyle of wealth, Cather characterizes Paul as very awkward and as someone that does not fit into the normal norms of society. He was not close to his family and had no friends at school or outside of school. At the biggin on the story we are reading in the third person point of view and we are hearing how his his teachers see paul and are discussing about his weird ways and actions.“I don't really believe that smile of his comes altogether from insolence, “he says. “There's something …show more content…

On the Sunday afternoon paul and his family were talking the young man about his work and about the exciting and exuberant life of his boss, paul sited that he wanted all the same experiences as the man's’ boss but he had no desire for part where one had to work hard for such lifestyle,wants to be rich without actually working hard and earning it for himself, “yet he rather liked to hear these legends of the iron kings that were told and retold on Sundays and holidays; these stories of palaces in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean, and high play at Monte Carlo appealed to his fancy, and he was interested in the triumphs of these cash boys who had become famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy stage”(paragraph 25).He believes that one can not climb up higher in life, but that one can only be born into that society. When he had the opportunity to steal the money from the company he was working, Paul did not think twice about taking the money and running away with it “Not once, but a hundred times, Paul had planned this entry into New York. He had gone over every detail of it with Charley Edwards, and in his scrap book at home there were pages of description about New York hotels, cut from the Sunday papers”(paragraph

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