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Paul's Case is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in McClure's Magazine in 1905.Paul, a suspended high
school student in Pittsburgh is bored with his humdrum life and decides on a trip to New York City.'Paul's case' is the way
teachers and his father refer to Paul concerning his disinterest in school.
It has been suggested
that it enables Willa Cather to '[impersonate] the voice of medical authority'.
Paul meets with
the Principal and his teachers from Pittsburgh High School after he has been suspended for a week. They complain of his agitation
in class, and of his apparent repulsion of other people's bodies. He then goes to work at Carnegie Hall but he is early, so
he loiters in the picture gallery. He then proceeds to usher the audience in; one of them is his English teacher. After the
concert he follows some of the singers and marvels at their glamour. He then walks back to his house but decides to sneak
into the basement and spend the night there so he doesn't have to explain to his father why he is late.
Paul despises the 'burghers' on his respectable but drab street, and is unimpressed by a plodding young man who works for
an iron company and is married with four children, although his father would like to use him as a role model for his son.
However, although Paul longs to be wealthy, cultivated and powerful, he lacks the stamina and ambition to even attempt to
change his condition. Instead, Paul escapes his humdrum life through visiting Charley Edwards, a young actor who works at
Carnegie Hall. Sometime later, as Paul made it clear to one of his teachers that his job there was more important than his
lessons, his father prevents him from continuing to work there.
Sometime later, Paul takes a
train to New York City. He now works for Denny & Carson's and has stolen $2,000 for his trip. He buys an expensive wardrobe,
checks in at the The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, walks around the city, and meets a young San Franciscan who shows him around the
nightlife until morning. His few days of impersonating a rich, privileged young man bring him more contentment than he has
ever known before. On the eighth day, however,when most of the money has been spent, Paul reads in the Pittsburgh newspapers
that the theft has been made public, and that his father has returned the money and is now on his way to New York City to
fetch his son. Unable to face a return to his dull, middle class life, Paul decides to take a train and a cab in Pennsylvania
and kills himself by jumping in front of a train.
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