How many teenagers never ask for anything, and always obey their parents? In truth, not many adhere to such behavior. Certain characters in literature follow similar adolescent patterns--we sympathize with Harry Potter’s struggle with his extended family and criticize Dudley Dursley’s selfish behavior. We applaud Oliver Twist when he eventually asks, “Please sir, may I have some more?” In Willa Cather’s short story “Paul’s Case”, she portrays the protagonist, Paul, in a similar light, proving that teenage years entail a certain disrespect and disdain for one’s life. Indeed, Paul struggles in adolescence with his focus on aesthetics, selfishness, and contempt for authority. Paul’s aesthetic paradigm immediately appears in his dandiness and his lack of appreciation for …show more content…
Cather notes, “There was something of the dandy about [Paul], and he wore an opal pin…and a red carnation in his buttonhole” (109). For Paul, dressing nicely entails a great sense of pleasure, “[Paul] began excitedly to tumble into his uniform…and thought it very becoming” (111). Cather highlights Paul’s fashion-oriented obsession and how it affects Paul’s judgment of others. For example, Paul criticizes poorly dressed people: “He decided…[the English teacher] was not appropriately dressed and must be a fool to sit…in such togs” (111). Here, Cather depicts Paul’s materialism not only as Paul’s juvenile obsession, but also as a tool for his judgment of others. On top of his sartorial dandiness, Paul is never satisfied with his surroundings and laments his “ugly sleeping chamber, the cold bathroom with the grimy zinc tub, the cracked mirror, [and] the dripping spigots”(113). Thus, Cather points out Paul’s similarities to his adolescent peers in disdain for his surroundings. This includes an lack of appreciation for the natural world because “a certain element of artificiality seemed to him necessary in beauty” (115). Thus, Paul thinks