The story of “Paul’s Case,” by Willa Cather, is one of a boy who seldom felt that he belonged. He lived in a suburban home where everyone seemed the same and there was a feeling of despair. Paul, who was a young man, felt that his father, teachers and classmates misunderstood him and therefore were unworthy of his company. In the story there are many symbolic elements. Flowers, for instance, symbolize Paul’s personality and life. The parallel between the boy and the flowers is made by the author many times throughout the short story. In the beginning of the story Paul has a meeting with the teachers of his school because he was misbehaving. For the meeting Paul shows up wearing “clothes [that] were a trifle outgrown . . . [with] a red carnation in his buttonhole.” This shows his total disrespect for authority because he is there to be disciplined; the teachers thought this “was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension.” The flower he wore shows that he does not care about school or his teachers: his teachers felt “that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower.” The principal also noted his conceit as he left the meeting and bowed which was described to be “a repetition of the scandalous red carnation.” It is almost as if the flower is his strength and reminds him of his need to be with a different class of people. Paul worked as an usher at Carnegie Hall. This was the only place where he really felt himself unfold. He became lost in the music, plays, and art. While Paul was at home, he would dream about the life he believed himself to be living as “a morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers.” To Paul, people who enjoyed having the presence of flowers seemed to be of a higher class above the rest. That is why he always wo...
