Paul's Case

            The color red is quite frequently used as a symbol. For the month of February it reminds people of love and St. Valentine. It is one of the colors we associate with the Christmas Holiday. Writers and filmmakers often use the color red as well. In most cases, the color red is used to portray death, such as in the blockbuster film "The Sixth Sense," however in Willa Cather's short story "Paul's Case" I think the color red is a symbol of separation.
             As soon as the reader is introduced to Paul, the idea of separation is evident, and this is also where the first mention of the color red comes about. Paul is in a faculty meeting to discuss his behavior. He was pleasantly dressed with "a red carnation in his buttonhole." (pg ). The red coloring of the flower here shows Paul's need to distinguish himself from his teachers. He wants to stand out and look like an upscale person. By wearing the red carnation, Paul is trying to represent his life as a socially upscale human being, and does not think he belongs on the same page as his professors. .
             The red carnation is continually mentioned in the faculty meeting. "His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower" (pg ). Cather again mentions the carnation when the faculty tells Paul he may leave "His bow was but a repetition of the scandalous red carnation." It is evident with both those lines that Paul's teachers view him as arrogant and think that he purposely defies them and the rules they set forth, and most definitely separated from their world. He stands out from the rest of his classmates at the school and is seen as a misfit, not really fitting in anywhere within the walls of his education.
             The color red is mentioned again later as Paul thinks to a time of warmer weather. Cather wrote: "When the weather was warm the girls made lemonade, which was always brought out in a red-glass pitcher.