Paul's Case

            Cather presents Paul as a flamboyant youth, with clothes and style not typical of high school. His taste in art is also one of great color and flamboyance. Before he goes to work at Carnegie Hall he decided to go the picture gallery, "where there were some of Raffelli's gay studies of Paris streets and an airy blue Venetian scene or two which always exhilarated him", and "eventually sat down before a blue Rico and lost himself". Which seemed to indicate that he judged art purely through how it made him feel. Paul's judgment of art and the world around him was lacking however as Cather describes that "in Paul's world, the natural always wore the guise of ugliness, that a certain element of artificiality seem to him necessary in beauty".
             The events, which led up to Paul's departure were for him "wonderfully simple". Because of his superior attitude in the classroom and his overly active imagination and tales, which perplexed his teachers, his father took him out of school and put him to work. Paul also had to give up his beloved job at Carnegie Hall and was forbidden to go to the theatre. While these events alone did not spur Paul to find the will to leave, the fact that he had been sent to the bank with Denny & Carson's deposit of about two thousand dollars in checks and "nearly a thousand in bank notes" was too much of a temptation for Paul. He made out a new deposit slip and knew that the bankbook "would not be returned before Monday or Tuesday", by which time he would be in New York. He took some of the bank notes and boarded the train for New York and "had not known a moment's hesitation".
             None of the adults ever actually investigate why Paul acts the way he does. Although they frequently reprimand him for his behavior, no one ever tries to determine the cause of it. They are insulted by his obvious contempt for them. He craves a romantic lifestyle that he cannot afford financially, which causes him to feel contempt.