Paul’s Case
School
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Why do Paul’s teachers have so much trouble dealing with him, and what frustrates
them?
How do his classmates see him?
How would students react to a classmate who “bid [them] goodbye, announcing that he
was going to…Naples, to California, to Egypt” (p. 243)?
Carnegie Hall
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How do the other ushers treat Paul? Why?
Can you understand why they actually “sat on him”?
Why does seeing his English teacher at the concert upset Paul?
How is the “peculiar intoxication” that Paul indulges in as he listens to the music a key to
his personality?
Cordelia Street
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Why does Paul feel he is “drowning”?
Discuss the decorations that hang above Paul’s bed. What aspects of American culture
do they refer to, and what do they omit?
What is revealed by Paul’s thoughts of his father on p. 239: “Then again, suppose…stay
his hand”?
New York
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Describe the effect of the leap in time that occurs in the white space before we find Paul
on the train to New York.
Why does Cather withhold for so long her account of what has taken place?
What is admirable about Paul’s entry into and sojourn in New York?
What is missing from his new life?
Why does Paul wink at himself in the mirror after reading the newspaper account of his
deeds?
All Groups
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Why does Cather introduce us to Paul in the order above? How does each setting
introduce another piece of the “Paul Puzzle”?
On the morning of his suicide, Paul recognizes that “money was everything.” Why does
he think so?
Does the story agree with him?
What is the effect of Paul’s burying his carnation in the snow? Of his last thoughts?
Exam Preparation
I. Close Reading Practice
A) Read the prompt and annotate the passage from “Paul’s Case.”
B) Complete the AEC chart at the bottom of the page.
Prompt: The following paragraph offers a key to the story’s theme. In a well-organized
essay, explore how Cather uses literary techniques such as point view, characterization,
symbolism, and setting to convey the story’s theme.
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. Perhaps it was because his experience of life
elsewhere was so full of Sabbath-School picnics, petty economies,
wholesome advice as to how to succeed in life, and the inescapable odors of
cooking, that he found this existence so alluring, these smartly clad men and
women so attractive, that he was moved by these starry apple orchards that
bloomed perennially under the limelight.
Assertion (Remember the six principles of a theme statement):
Evidence
1.
2.
3.
Commentary