Paul's Case

As the titular character, Paul is the center of the entire story, and any analysis of the story is thus also a de facto analysis of his character (a few of these interpretations are posited in the Story Analysis section). Paul can be understood as a proxy for Cather due to their many overlapping biographical details. For example, Cather also lived in Pittsburgh, and she wrote “Paul’s Story” a year before she moved, like her character, to New York. The superficial likeness between author and character suggests that many of the emotional traits that move within Paul—alienation, feelings of otherness and displacement, a longing for aesthetic pleasure—come directly from Cather’s interior life.

Another way to understand Paul, as several critics have, is that he is gay but can’t be open about his orientation. Many of the character’s descriptions suggest this, especially in light of Cather’s apparent interest in scrutinizing gender norms (an interest some scholars discern in her oeuvre) as well as the likelihood she herself was a lesbian. From the story’s outset, the narrative presents Paul at variance with cultural norms of masculinity—and within the story’s historical context, such characteristics could easily signal sexual orientation.