In the short story "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather the main character, Paul feels entrapped in a life he feels he doesn't belong in, due to the lack of love. Paul is overcome with feelings of despair because feels his father, teachers and classmates misunderstand him and are unworthy of his company.
             In the beginning of the story Paul has a meeting with his teachers because he was misbehaving. Paul shows up for the meeting wearing "clothes [that] were a trifle outgrown...[with] a red carnation in his buttonhole". The teachers thought this "was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension". The flower shows Paul does not care about school or his teachers. His teachers feel "that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower". The principal also noted his conceit as he left the meeting and bowed, described as "a repetition of the scandalous red carnation". It seems that the carnation is Paul's strength and reminds him of his need to be with a different class of people.
             Paul worked as an usher at Carnegie Hall, the only place where he felt himself unfold. He became lost in the music, plays, and art. While Paul was at home, he would dream about the life he believed himself to be living as "a morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers".
             To Paul, people who enjoyed having the presence of flowers seemed to be of a higher class, which is the reason he wears the red carnation. He describes his neighborhood, the people he despises, to be "prosy men who never wore frock coats or violets in their buttonholes". He would dream about "the flowers he sent" to members of the stock company, his "acquaintances". Paul wants to be like the flowers, living to their extent, saturating the beauty of life.
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