In “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather, we are invited into the world of a peculiar boy named Paul who struggles with himself and society in search of his place. Paul seeks both power and security yet is provided with neither. Paul is described as sly, intellectual, conniving, artistic, secretive, imaginative and depressed. Nothing about Paul seems right. His clothes are too big, his family is too distant, his school is too strict, absolutely everything around Paul contrasts with him. He seems to be in clear opposition of the world around him, especially in Pittsburgh, PA. It seems that the closer Paul is to his father, the more he acts out (or the more we notice it). Paul cannot stand the thought of being controlled or being under the authority of another. He lives loose, unstable, carnal and inconsiderately. He craves an illusion that he refuses to work for. He sees results but ignores discipline and hard-work. He salivates over the idea of wealth and dreads the concept of working to get there. He is a direct foil to his father.
Cather realized that writing from the perspective of any of the authoritative leaders would have made it entirely too easy to blame Paul for his fatal ending and to write the leaders off as victims. So instead she paints the world around Paul to the readers from the eyes of Paul so that we can see what he sees. In this world his father, like most of the leaders in this novel is domineering and self-righteous. They did not try to understand Paul or to listen to him. Instead they tried to “correct” him, to mold him into the standard image of a male. As a result, Paul rebelled yet he never did stop fearing. As stated in the text, Paul always feared that his father’s ability to end his life. As unreasonable as it...
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...e, fraudulence, expensive taste, and irresponsibility. She opens him up to us as a boy with a lot of secrets and hurts that he does not know how deal with the brutalities of life. He is not correct in his dealings with life’s issues but he causes us to evaluate the leaders in his life. They also failed Paul. Cather does not want us to miss that Paul’s case is no different than many youth. The issue is not that Paul had an issue, all people have issues. The issue is how humanity, leaders and family react to the issue. Paul’s actions were to him the best that he could amount to. All he wanted was to taste the finer things in life. It is natural for people to connect that to money or extravagance but maybe he simply sought acceptance, security and freedom. It is possible that Paul simply desired to be loved and it is also possible that throughout his life, he never was.
Cyrano de Bergerac, the Play vs. Roxane, the Movie In an effort to attract the audience of today, the producers of the movie Roxane retold the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rustond in a way that is appropriate and at the same time appealing. In order to give the audience of today a story that they can understand and relate to, the producers have adjusted and manipulated the play itself. As a result, several similarities and differences exist between the play Cyrano de Bergerac and its movie reproduction. The characteristics of a romantic hero in Rustond’s time is not equivalent to the characteristics of a romantic hero today. In the play for example, Cyrano, a very ugly, old, yet intellectual man who loved Roxane, his cousin, with all his heart and soul was unable to profess his love for fear that she will have rejected him because of his looks. Enter Christian in the story, a young, average, yet handsome individual who also loved Roxane. The two made a pact with each other to create Roxane’s image of a perfect romantic hero—one that was breath-takingly handsome and at the same token, smart in a fun and interesting way. Together they charmed Roxane and she ultimately fell in love with Cyrano’s enchanting personality and Christian’s captivating appearance. Cyrano is portrayed as a great romantic hero because he died in silence to honor his friendship with Christian. When all the while he could have accumulated enough courage to pronounce his love for Roxane.
Paul surrounds himself with the aesthetics of music and the rich and wealthy, as a means to escape his true reality. In Paul’s true reality, he has a lack of interest in school. His disinterest in school stems from the alienation and isolation he has in life. This disinterest in school reflects Paul’s alienation because of the unusual attention he receives there that he doesn’t get at home. In class one day he was at the chalkboard and “his English teacher had stepped to his side and attempted to guide his hand” (Cather 1).
It is said that simplicity and complexity need each other. This saying corresponds with Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac, in which Cyrano de Bergerac, a swashbuckling poet, and Baron Christian de Neuvillette, a dumbfounded romantic, in loving the same fair maiden, display contrasting characteristics. This foiling of characters highlights distinctive attributes of both men. The astounding wit and courage yet grotesque appearance Cyrano possesses oppose the exquisite physique yet floundering tongue and inept actions Christian offers; however, despite their differences, both figures ultimately find love with their beloved, Roxane.
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
Paul is seen as a pianist prodigy, although he is spoilt, leading him to become too proud of his skills which were not a good trait in Keller’s eyes, shown in Keller’s rebuking “…You are too proud to play it again…?” P. 27. and “…You are spoilt…First you must learn to listen…” P. 12
Paul believes that everyone around him is beneath him. He is convinced that he is superior to everyone else in his school and in his neighborhood. He is even condescending to his teachers, and shows an appalling amount of contempt for them, of which they are very aware.
Cyrano de Bergerac is the heroic, courageous, and noble hero of the play. He is known for having a ridiculously enormous nose that makes him self-conscious of his appearance and keeps him from unveiling his love for Roxanne. He portrays the characteristics and qualities of a hero. He helps Christian captivate the heart of the woman he loves as well as saving Ligniere's life by fighting one hundred men. He maintains his loyalty to those important to him. Comte de Guiche is the antagonist of the play. Throughout the play, he shows to be vengeful and manipulative as he tries to make Roxanne his mistress and seeks revenge on Christian and Cyrano for taking Roxanne from him. He uses his position as the Cardinal’s nephew to get what he desires.
Renowned dramatist and poet, Edmond Rostand, in his play, Cyrano de Bergerac, illustrates the effect of inner and outer beauty in ones insecurities. Rostand's purpose is to show how one perceives his or her own qualities can lead to inner conflict affecting his or her self-confidence and actions. Each character has a quality that is accentuated and determines his or her insecurity. Rostand generates a humorous, yet dramatic, tone in order to demonstrate to his audience how one’s own insecurities can lead to regretful actions.
This is one aspect of romanticism which Cyrano most definitely embodies with his characteristics of a tragic hero. He is a man controlled by fate, which is a favorite theme of Rostand. With this theme, Smith emphasizes that Cyrano is a pawn of his fate. Smith then proves this notion by explaining how romantic heros are pawns of “fate and events” (374). This shows how Cyrano, despite his positive qualities, is bound for failure due to the nature of the play. It could be argued that Cyrano is not a failure in the fact that his love for Roxanne does not go unanswered. It is devastating that Cyrano spent so much time trying to obtain this happiness and realises all along that “he could have won Roxanne’s love for himself” (“Debating Deception,” n.p.).
Many people in the world have a set of characteristics, which they desire in a romantic partner, and these characteristics may include money, maturity, honesty, trustworthiness, beauty, and intelligence. These traits were used to help people in the 1600s find love as well. In Edmond Rostand’s play, Cyrano De Bergerac, the conflict between the desire for beauty and the coveting of intelligence takes center stage as Cyrano, the intelligent one, helps Christian, the handsome one, woo the love of their lives. Throughout the play, Rostand glorifies the trait of intelligence, while indirectly depreciating the trait of beauty, using the literary device of tone, which was mocking throughout the play. Although the play is meant as a light-hearted comedy, Rostand underlies the events in the play with his take on the conflict itself, through the characterizations and descriptions of Cyrano and Christian.
From the outset of the story, the reader is shown Paul's thoughts. Through this the story tells us that Paul has a very active imagination. This is shown when Pauls says, "Then,
In ‘Paul’s Case’ Paul has created a fantasy world in which he becomes entranced, even to the point of lying to classmates about the tales of grandeur and close friendships that he had made with the members of the stock company. This fantasy falls apart around him as “the principle went to Paul’s father, and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper at the theater was warned not to admit him to the house” (Cather 8). The fantasy fell apart further when the stories he had told his classmates reached the ears of the women of the stock company, who unlike their lavish descriptions from Paul were actually hardworking women supporting their families. Unable to cope with the reality of working for Denny & Carson, he stole the money he was supposed to deposit in the bank to live the life of luxury in New York. Only a person who felt backed into a corner would attempt something so unsound. After his eight days in paradise, he is again backed into a corner by the reality of his middle class upbringing, and the dwindling time he has before his father reaches New York to find him. The final way out for Paul is his suicide, for which an explanation would be “In the end, he fails to find his security, for it was his grandiose “picture making mechanism” that made his life so deardful.” (Saari). With all the securities of his fantasy life finally gone, his mental instability fully comes to light as he jumps in front of the train to end his
Paul believes that he was tricked into joining the army and fighting in the war. This makes him very bitter towards the people who lied to him. This is why he lost his respect and trust towards the society. Teachers and parents were the big catalysts for the ki...
In the beginning of the story, Paul seems to be a typical teenage boy: in trouble for causing problems in the classroom. As the story progresses, the reader can infer that Paul is rather withdrawn. He would rather live in his fantasy world than face reality. Paul dreaded returning home after the Carnegie Hall performances. He loathed his "ugly sleeping chamber with the yellow walls," but most of all, he feared his father. This is the first sign that he has a troubled homelife. Next, the reader learns that Paul has no mother, and that his father holds a neighbor boy up to Paul as "a model" . The lack of affection that Paul received at home caused him to look elsewhere for the attention that he craved.
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.”