The Diary of Samuel Pepys - Case Study Example

Gp Capt (Ret’d) NA Moitra VM Academia-Research.com 11 May 2008 Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament Paul’s Case, a story by Willa Cather first published in May 1905, falls short of being nominated an allegory simply because the reference to Goethe’s Faust is to a hybrid between a play and an extended poem, though epic in scope as a two part comic tragedy. There are a number of versions, some presented as Operas. "No Elizabethan play outside the Shakespeare canon has raised more controversy than Doctor Faust. There is no agreement concerning the nature of the text and the date of composition ...and the centrality of the Faust legend in the history of the Western world precludes any definitive agreement on the interpretation of the play.” (Logan and Smith, p. 14). The name "Faust" comes from a charlatan alchemist (some claim astrologer and necromancer) whose pride and vanity lead to his doom. (elconnery.blogspot.com, also, en.Wikipedia.org) In the past, it was assumed that the comic scenes were additions by other writers. However, most scholars today consider the comedy an integral part of the play, as its tone shows the change in Faust’s ambitions. (Anon) With greater recognition, Faust became a Grand Opera, ending tragically in death. Paul’s death in Cather’s short story, prompting the comparison, transmogrifies a youth’s confused vision of Utopia into a destination attainable only after renouncing life. The story is one extensive allusion, interspersed with multiple cross references to images or symbols, some of which are complex and require background knowledge of literature from Shakespeare’s era. Faust or Faustus, is noted for his pact with the devil, in the form of Mephistopheles, a servant of Lucifer, the Devil incarnate. He also finds place in other works dealing with the netherworld. (Soldati, 1980 also Leslie Kay Swigart, 2004). Kennedy’s Faust (p 537) curses life –“would that I were never born” he says. The similarity to Paul’s bent of mind is striking. Cordelia was one of three daughters of King Lear, from Shakespeare’s play of the same name. The only unmarried Princess, she fell out of favor with her father and was disowned by him, ultimately dying a horrific death. (JSTOR) The loss of paternal love affected her in its own way, as it did with Paul. Cordelia is, therefore, an allusion. There is a dichotomy here, because if she was a person who Paul identified himself with, in the story she symbolizes all that he had grown to despise. This symbol was the embodiment of a dreary street, stretching monotonously with identical houses lining it on both sides. It had a tangible aura of hopelessness and futility, a depressing road to nowhere. It was a place housing haggard businessmen who sickened Paul with their shabby attire smelling of cooking. To Paul, Cordelia Street, with the greasy odour of dish-water and damp dish-towels, belonged to another era and set of circumstances, exemplifying the depths of his despair. (http://www.geocities.com) Sundays saw most people sitting outside their houses on Cordelia Street, chatting or gossiping. Some stories caught Paul’s interest, like those of the palaces in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean and high play at Monte Carlo. He got to hear about triumphs of cash boys who had become famous. The concept was appealing, but Paul, like many of his genre, wanted instant stardom. He had no time to waste at intermediate stages-he wanted to be a true high-speed rags to riches story. There is a similarity of views with the 19th-century American author Horatio Alger, Jr., many of whose novels have been described as rags to riches stories, illustrating how down-and-out boys might be able to achieve the American Dream of wealth and success through hard work, courage, determination, and concern for others. Paul worked evenings as an usher at Carnegie Hall, a job he found immensely satisfying and one that endeared him to the audience because of his vivacity, friendly charm and animated involvement. The moment the music came on, he would lose himself to the spirit within him, retreating to a world of fantasy. The soloist, a mother of many, was like a queen of Romance to him. He hated the moment when the concert would conclude as it brought him back to reality- How much he wished that life be one long theatrical show. Cather uses a line from Wordsworth’s Ode, Intimations of Immortality, ‘the rest is but a sleep and a forgetting’, to indicate that man is mortal, having come from afar (God). But there is much pleasure in life, right from infancy, if only one knows how to make the most of every living moment. Moreover, there is extensive references to flowers, each type portraying a mood, age or season. Paul had to appear before the Principal and Staff to defend himself, having been suspended form school. His teachers felt that his attitude was disorderly and impertinent, defiant and openly contemptuous. This could be summed up in the drawing master’s opinion,” There is something wrong about the fellow.” His dress for the occasion featured a red carnation prominently, which was construed as a sign of flippancy and insolence (535). His graceful bow when excused was seen by biased eyes as perfunctory, in keeping with his ‘scandalous’ red carnation (536). The bulk of ‘Pauls Case’ was set in winter and flowers dont bloom in winter. Yet flowers represent a lot to Paul. He thinks his house unworthy of flowers, but his hotel room is. He passes a flower shop one night, and thinks about the flowers blooming despite, or even in defiance of winter. In fact, Paul’s life can be considered a winter in yet another allusion. Here flowers can be taken to mean those little touches that make life so worth living, like family love, affection and acceptance, etc. Page 549 foretells Paul’s end. As Cather says, ’The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, their red glory all over. It occurred to him that all the flowers he had seen in the glass cases that first night must have gone the same way, long before this. It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it was a losing game in the end’. Light is a friend to Paul. Light also represents Pauls desires- the windows of the opera singers hotel had an ‘orange glow’; in New York, the lights streamed from the hotels. Darkness represents the wall that keeps Paul from reaching his goal. Paul waits outside the opera singers hotel, wondering whether he was ‘destined always to shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it’. Rain is part of this wall, which ‘beat in his face’, forcing him back to Cordelia Street, feeling that he can no longer endure his drab existence. The story has come a full circle. The ‘long dead grass and dried weed stalks protruded black’ from the fields that Paul passed in the train, foreshadowing his impending death. (ccwf.cc.utexas.edu) The memory of Cordelia Street falls upon Paul like ‘a weight of black water’. Even the man who opens the doors to the opera singers hotel is black. Finally, as Paul throws himself under the train, his visions flash ‘into black’. His last thoughts are on the things that he will never get to do, because he ended it all before his time. A mere speck in life’s huge canvas, he drops back into the immense design of things. List of Citations Logan and Smith, p. 14 : The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Daily- Entries From The 17th Century London Diary, also en.Wikipedia.org Soldati 1980, Configurations of Faust: Three Studies in the Gothic (1798-1820): Melmoth the Wanderer, Weiland, Frankenstein. elconnery.blogspot.com, also, en.Wikipedia.org Leslie Kay Swigart, Latest List Update: 23 September 2004, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Utopian, and Dystopian Theses and Dissertations, JSTOR: "Is This the Promised End?" The Tragedy of King Lear available at links.jstor.org The Significance of Pittsburgh and Cordelia Street extracted from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/oracle/4925/Setting.html ccwf.cc.utexas.edu www.shakespeare-literature.com/King_Lear available at books.google.co.in/ books? isbn=0486280586... Horatio Alger, Jr. www.britannica.com/eb/article-9005694/Horatio-Alger Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood By William Wordsworth, Published 2006, Kessinger Publishing , LLC Read More