In Cather’s short story, “Paul’s Case,” Cather depicts a dispiriting story a high school boy named Paul with a severe case of depression. Paul is irrationally and foolishly obsessed with theater and the performing arts and often flees from the bitter reality of school and work into his own imagination, using the arts as means of achieving this. “Paul half closed his eyes, and gave himself up to the peculiar stimulus such personages always had for him” (75). However, instead of entering the art world, he chooses to admire it from afar, caring only about the benefits of being a performer: expensive possessions, money, and fame.
To Paul, expensive possessions, money, and fame serve as antidepressants, since Paul metamorphosizes into an optimist
To Paul, expensive possessions, money, and fame serve as antidepressants, since Paul metamorphosizes into an optimist