Paul's Case: A Study in Temperament is a short story by Willa Cather, first published in 1905. It tells of a teenage boy who won't conform to his community's standards of acceptable behaviors and life goals. In the first act, we first see our hero appearing before the faculty of the Pittsburghnote High School, from which he was recently suspended owing to his "disorder and impertinence," but the actual offenses are difficult to qualify and amount to Paul showing signs of what would indicate contempt and physical revulsion toward his teachers. Once, when Paul was writing on the board, his English teacher had wanted to guide his hand, which prompted him to start back with a shudder and thrust his hands violently behind him. On being questioned about his behaviors, Paul neither offers telling explanations of them, nor does he resist the teachers' criticisms, but rather keeps smiling and shows some nervous tics. Stumped and confused, the teachers let Paul go and continue musing about just what could be wrong with him. Impertinent as they find him, they are not completely unsympathetic - Paul has, after all, lost his mother. Still, he remains a mystery to the faculty.
Having been given this reprieve, Paul goes to his part-time job as an usher at "Carnegie Hall", a concert hallnote . He enjoys this job, as he gets to stay for the symphony. But Paul's father disapproves of how his son spends his evenings, and on coming home later than his work would necessitate due to following behind the soprano on her way out, the former sneaks into the basement and spends the night there to avoid facing his father. Paul finds it dreary to live in a dull middle-class neighborhood among practical people whom he scorns, having to go to church and sabbath school on Sundays, and being encouraged by his father to emulate a local young man, "clerk to one of the magnates of a great steel corporation" who "was looked upon in Cordelia Street as a young man with a future", and who at the age of 21 had taken his boss' advice to marry the first woman whom he could persuade to share his fortunes, and now has four children. That Sunday, on the pretext of going across town to get help with his geometry from a schoolmate, Paul escapes his home environment to spend time with Charley Edwards, an actor friend, whom he assists in his dressing room and who has invited him to the Sunday night rehearsals of his theater company.
Paul hasn't been reformed by his recent suspension; he tells lies at school about his acquaintances in the acting world and his alleged imminent departure for a trip to some exotic location or other; he persists in showing attitude toward his teachers, making his preference to help out at the theater company over what he is learning in school known to them. The principal goes with this to Paul's father who, possibly with the principal's collusion, takes Paul out of school, puts him to work at an office job, tells the manager at Carnegie Hall to get another usher, and makes Charley promise not to see Paul again.
If the adults thought this would set Paul on a more constructive path toward adulthood, they are sorely mistaken. In the second act, when Paul is tasked by his employer with taking a large sum of money to the bank, he deposits only the checks and pockets the cash - almost $1000note , and takes a train to New York City, where all the action is. He checks into the Waldorf, signing in as the son of rich parents from Washington waiting for them to arrive to New York on their steamer, and indulges in the good life, buying fine clothes, getting flowers sent to his hotel room, and taking a hot bath. Paul's dream life lasts for a week: he lives like a king at the Waldorf, goes to the Metropolitan Opera, spends a wild night on the town with a Yale freshman from San Francisco, and experiences being hung over. On the eighth day after his arrival to New York, the inevitable finally catches up with Paul and he must face the reality of what he has done.
This classic piece of Americana was conceived as a proto-psychological study of a socially deviant teenager. The author gives a thorough exposition of Paul's everyday life and something of his backstory, hinting variously as to what may have motivated his actions. At the same time, the story does not draw any conclusions, leaving the final assessment of Paul’s character to the reader. It may be read here
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This work provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Gay: While Paul's sexuality is not discussed, an interpretation of him as gay has ample support. He is explicitly described as something of a dandy, loving fine clothes and wearing a carnation in his buttonhole. He likes his evening job as a theater usher, using the opportunity to stay and listen to the concert, as well as being fast friends with an actor. Likewise, Paul is not shown to interface with girls, and during his stay at the Waldorf, spends one night on the town with a "wild" Yale freshman whom he meets there, the details of which are not divulged but which is specifically stated to have lasted until the wee hours. Not to mention that Willa Cather is widely believed to have been a lesbian. All this could point to him having used his flight from Pittsburgh in part to indulge a homosexual tendency that he had been compelled to repress around his family.
- Big Applesauce: Given Paul's penchant for the finer things in life, New York City – at that time the pulsating heart of American high society – is his logical destination. In her description of his sojourn there, the author colorfully depicts a wintry New York, having Paul experience the best that the city has to offer – while at the same time showing us that there are people of lower class living there as well.
- Both Sides Have a Point: It is understandable that Paul finds his conservative middle-class environment stifling; even the author seems to sympathize with him on this point to some extent. However, his father is right in that, to get anywhere in life, one needs to work for it, and Paul could show greater appreciation and better manners toward his teachers, as well as more tolerance toward the honest, hard-working people in his neighborhood.
- Caught Coming Home Late: Seemingly averted. Paul comes home later than he was supposed to from his usher's job after trailing behind the soprano on her way out. He knows that his father will be waiting up for him and that there will be questions and reproaches, and plans to tell him that he had had no carfare and that it was raining and that he had slept over at one of his colleagues'. The bad weather forces Paul to slip into his home through a basement window, and he spends all night awake in the basement.
- The Dandy: Paul likes to dress up; when we first see him, he is as much of a fop as his shabby middle-class attire will allow him to be. In particular, he likes to wear a carnation in his buttonhole. When Paul takes off to New York with the stolen money, one of the first things he does is to get an elegant new wardrobe.
- Despair Event Horizon: Just over a week into his escapade, Paul reads in the Pittsburgh papers that his crime has been made public. His father has repaid the stolen money and is looking for him. He has even been sighted in New York City. Paul's flight has become quite a big story and the folks back home are determined to get him back and reform him. Having already spent most of the money he had stolen, Paul has nowhere to go. Returning to Cordelia Street is an unfathomable prospect for him.
- Driven to Suicide: Paul has a revolver with him; the author appears to indicate that he bought it early in his stay in New York, having anticipated this outcome since his first day in the city. However, he tells himself that committing suicide by this method is "not the way". He finally elects to jump in front of a train.
- Evil Pays Better: This is what Paul thinks when sitting in the elegant dining room of the Waldorf, living the life of his dreams off stolen money: "Paul wondered that there were honest men in the world at all. This was what all the world was fighting for, he reflected; this was what all the struggle was about."
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Paul's father disapproves of his son's penchant for the theater and associating with artistic types. It is specifically stated that he only allows Paul to work as an usher because he thinks a boy ought to be earning some money. When Paul makes it known to his teachers that he cares more about helping his friend's theater troupe than about school, the principal tells his father, who takes him out of school, puts him to work at an office job, and bars him from associating with the artistic community.
- The Gilded Age: Set late in this period or shortly thereafter, the atmosphere of the story, with its contrast between the industrialist Pittsburgh and the posh New York very much evokes this era.
- Irony: Paul appears to imagine the actor's life as one of class and luxury, superior to his mundane school and home life, and concocts wild stories at school about how he spends time with the members of his friend Charley's stock company and with the soloists who come to Carnegie Hall. However, the members of the stock company are "vastly amused when some of Paul's stories reached them - especially the women. They were hard-working women, most of them supporting indigent husbands or brothers, and they laughed rather bitterly at having stirred the boy to such fervid and florid inventions. They agreed with the faculty and with his father that Paul's was a bad case."
- Parental Abandonment: Paul's mom is dead. Only her picture is still on the wall at his home.
- Parents as People: Paul's dad clearly means well, but makes no attempt to see things a little more from his son's point of view. He has no understanding for Paul's flights of fancy and would rather see more of a Calvinistic work ethic and conventional values develop in him. It is implied to totally alienate Paul, who imagines his father mistaking him for a burglar and shooting at him when he sneaks into the basement after coming home late from his usher job, not being sure as to whether or not his father would be sorry if he had almost hit him.
