The story opens with Paul’s teachers meeting Paul to discuss his recent suspension due to behavior problems. Paul shows up wearing, what turns out to be symbolic of Paul himself, a red carnation in his coat. This is seen by the teachers as an act of defiance. Later we find out that Paul wanted to show himself to be different from everyone there. After asked by the principle whether or not Paul would like to come back to school, he replies that he wanted to come back. “This was a lie, but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction” (Cather 197). Already we have a picture of Paul, someone who refuses to fit in,

Paul wanted to have it all; in today’s standards Paul wanted to be “bling bling.” Paul, however, did not care much for working hard to achieve this great wealth he so desired. Neither did Paul care much to be an actor or artist, but rather lose himself in the art. The stories of the great iron kings and “stories of palaces in Venice, yachts on the Mediterranean, and high play at Monte Carlo appealed to his fancy, and he was interested in the triumphs of the cash-boys who had become famous, though he had no mind for the cash-boy stage” (Cather 204). In other words, the idea of being wealthy strongly appealed to Paul, while the act of becoming wealthy, or the cash-boy stage, had little appeal to him. Paul didn’t want to become anything in particular; “what he wanted was to see, to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be carried out, blue league after league, away from everything” (Cather 206). In short, all that Paul wanted was to escape, and in the end he found the ultimate escape in his death.

who feels himself to be something above all that is around him. Paul continues to consciously try to test the teachers with small gestures that seemed to be particularly effective at the job intended. “Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying to detect something” (Cather 198). This habit of smiling was remarked upon by his teacher, “I don’t believe that smile of his comes altogether from insolence; there’s something sort of haunted about it. The boy is not strong for one thing. There is something wrong about the fellow” (Cather 199). These early remarks in the story already begin to foreshadow Paul’s illness, as well as his ability to take his own life.

Paul worked at Carnegie hall, which was a large part of his life. “It would be difficult to put strongly enough how convincingly the stage entrance of the theatre was for Paul the actual portal of Romance” (Cather 205). His e

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