Willa Cather

“Paul’s Case” by Willa Sibert Cather Paul, is a short story about how difficult it can be a homosexual. The story begins Paul being suspended from high school for a week. After his suspension, the teachers decide whether to let him back to the high school, and their mood is not improved because of his defiant manner in class towards them. The teachers grudgingly agree to re-admit him. However, Paul goes to Carnegie Hall of music in Pittsburg, where he enjoys working as an usher in a concert.…

In the Willa Cather’s novel, The Professor’s House, Cather writes about Professor St. Peter’s struggle to find meaning in his life. As he moves into a new house, he realizes that life is limited by society’s obsession with materialism. Therefore, as a way to hold onto his earlier memories, he keeps his office stationed in his old, shambled house. The professor’s internal conflict escalates as he reminisces about the life of Tom Outland, his late friend, that was filled with isolation from…

Life is personified in My Ántonia, as Ántonia’s spirit makes an impact on Jim, causing him to return to visit her as an adult. “I told Ántonia I would come back, but life intervened, and it was twenty years before I kept my promise” (My Ántonia 175). Life is personified to intervene, and Jim is unable to return and visit Ántonia. Ántonia is so important to Jim because of her success, that he makes a point of returning to visit her. “Not only the progenitor of a large, vigorous family, she is…

In the story of Antigone, the first thing the character Creon does is declare a harsh but understandable law. He proclaims that while the body of Eteocles will be buried with dignity, the corpse of Polyneices will be left to rot on the field of battle. Anyone who attempts to honor Polyneices's body with burial will be sentenced to death. Though Polyneices is Creon’s own family, he does not hold back in punishing him. “Did you by any chance act on the assumption that a daughter of Oedipus, a…

It is a common practice in short fiction to highlight the negative aspects of the human struggle. One of the main ways this is conveyed in through isolation which brings intense focus on the actions of the main character. In “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather, the main character, Paul, is a young teen that is considered a “bad case” because he is unable to act like the typical child his age. This is intensifies when he steals money and runs away to New York. In Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” the…

ability to cause people to become totally and utterly consumed by their beliefs. In addition people’s ideals vary depending on many factors such as their environment and the people they associate themselves with. In the short story “Paul’s Case”, Willa Cather portrays the idea…

access to so many different things, information is retrieved almost as quickly it is desired. As a result, we have forgotten the importance of the journey. Inestead, we are eager to get to the light at the end of the tunnel as quickly as possible. Willa Cather, an American author, said, “The end is nothing; the road is all.” She is correct in saying this because the importance of the journey is far greater than that of the destination. We do not simply get from the starting line to finish line…

become a social outcast, excluded and excommunicated from the very aspect of life. The theme alienation in a small society is depicted primarily through social surroundings and physical or emotional disabilities by authors such as Franz Kafka and Willa…

Literature means many different things to many different people. It can be an escape from reality, to gaining knowledge by reading the Encyclopedia. Books, or literature, could be anything with words that have meaning, but to critic Roland Barthes 'literature is the questions minus the answer, ' he means that within each piece of literature there are questions that the book leaves with you. Although, many times you must read between the lines or look deeper into the text itself. Many books…

This year in English 10H has allowed me to hone and improve my reading and writing skills. With this class, I have been able to be challenged far more than I would have had I not chosen to stick with an honors class. My writing has improved leaps and bounds over the course of the year due to the large amount of papers we wrote that covered vastly different subject matters. The first paper we wrote to start off the year was a thesis essay based on an independent novel that we read over the summer…