Comment on some of the concrete details Cather dwells on. What, ...

[gonzo233]

Comment on some of the concrete details Cather dwells on. What, forinstance, do you make of the portraits of Washington and John Calvin and the motto placed over Pauls bed (paragraph 18)? Of the carnation Paul buries in the snow (paragraph 64)?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Does Cathers brief introduction into the story of the wild Yale freshmanfrom San Francisco (in paragraph 54) serve any purpose? Why do you suppose he and Paul have such a singularly cool parting? What is Cathers point?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[b614102004]

Answer to Question 1

• Pauls sensibilities recoil from all that is ugly, even ordinary. His room, featuring pictures of those austere and well-disciplined heroes George Washington and John Calvin, is hateful to him. Working-class Cordelia Street, where he lives, induces in him a shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, colorless mass of every-day existence; a morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers (par. 19). By paragraph 64, after Paul has run away from New York, he realizes that fresh flowers do not stay fresh forever. He sees the parallel between their brave mockery and his own revolt against the homilies by which the world is run and characterizes both as a losing game in the end. He dies like the flowers, his one splendid breath spent.

Answer to Question 2

• In New York Paul expects to find wealthy persons of taste and temperament similar to his own. He finds instead the disappointing Yale student who, far from sharing Pauls reverence for beauty, seems to the boy hopelessly crass. Ironically, though he seems to have grown up with all the advantages Paul has lacked, this worldly student disappoints Paul as much as do his family and friends at home. Who could measure up to Pauls impossible standards? For the rest of his stay, Paul is content to observe his fellow guests from afar.