Willa Cather's story "Paul's Case" is trying to tell us that it is foolish to take one's own life because of set backs that make it hard to capture our dreams. Paul doesn't realize that you have to earn and work for what want in life like his father did.
             We first see Paul going back to school a reality that he doesn't want to be part of. Paul comes into the school "suave and smiling". But his clothes tell a different story.
             "His clothes were trifle outgrown and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn"(406).
             The fact that Paul lies a lot is a way for him to escape a reality that he does not want to be a part of. Paul's involvement at Carnegie Hall is where he plays out his fantasizing. His shining hour is when he changes into his usher's uniform. The story tells us that Paul was "always excited while he dressed" and telling the other boys "he was crazy . . . being a model usher . . . all the people in his section thought if him as a charming boy"(409). But at school his teachers got mad at him. If for just a moment he stopped and thought about how school could help him with his future and the hopes he has for it. All he thought about was himself and the present.
             Paul lives on a street full of rich people who are financially secure because of the arts. He wanted to be like them so he was taken in by the arts. This is the only way he could come close to his dreams, so he thought. The next few sentences describe what the arts do for him:
             "It was at the theater and Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and forgetting. This was Paul's fairy tale,
             and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odors behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant, polite things. The moment the cracked orchestra flat out the overture f...