Paul's Trip To Boston

Paul's has just moved to Gate a prestigious school at which his mother works at. Coming out of a troubling divorce his mother packs up pal and moves. A few weeks after he moved to town he started becoming friends with Charlie. People's differing views towards Charlie leaves Paul at a stuck point with many people in his life. For example Binky, Paul's best friend for a while took him in, hung out with him, and made him feel like a friend.

1. What do you think Paul is really looking for when he sits at home in his old room?

Point- Paul is content with his life in New York, but knows it cannot last.

A lifelong dream of Paul occurs when he makes the trip to New York City. The trip to New York City gives Paul the opportunity to live the life he always dreamed of. After being forced to leave his job as an usher at Carnegie Hall Paul gets a job working at Denny and Carson’s office firm. He gets the money to go to New York City by taking the money

Paul stole more than $1000, enough to live for a month in New York City, at the time of the story, and only if spent cautiously. But, no... Paul would have none of that. It would have been a waste to have more money than he had ever seen in his life, and yet live just as he had throughout his life. He wanted to live in style, the way the rich folks did. So, Paul spent the money within a week on all the best clothes, the best food, the best hotel room, the best flowers, and the best life. The money disappeared within a week and Paul was forced to leave it all behind and return to the dreariness of middle class existence.

The story cuts away to some time later, when Paul had been working at Denny and Carson's long enough to earn their trust. Denny and Carson came to entrust Paul with the week's payroll. His responsibility was to take it to the bank and make the deposit. One weekend, however, Paul was instructed to take the ledger in to be balanced, and Paul knew about it ahead of time. He asked his bosses for the next day, Saturday, off citing a plausible excuse. When he took the deposit down to the bank on Friday, Paul pocketed

After being forced to leave his job as an usher at Carnegie Hall Paul gets a job working at Denny and Carson's office firm. He gets the money to go to New York City by taking the money he was supposed to deposit in the bank from Denny and Carson's deposit and pockets it. Paul arrives in New York and lives the luxurious life by buying fancy clothes and checking into a nice hotel. After eight days in New York his fun runs out when he discovers in the Pittsburgh papers that his father had reimbursed the firm and was coming to get him. "Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair, weak to the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was worse than jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him finally and forever" (Cather 11). After succeeding

When Paul finds out that he was being tracked down, he uses what is left of the stolen money to escape into the countryside where he finds an overpass and ends up jumping in front of a train to end his life.

In the beginning, Paul is mostly a ‘momma’s boy’, for example, on page 25, when Paul fisher’s mom introduces him to the school, she says, “We are hoping to see exactly where Paul will be going next week. He has problems

enters peoples houses and surrounds himself with what they have and for a moment he is able to pretend that what they have belongs to him. Paul creates a new identity for himself as

Paul finally escaped the hostile world he lived in, but his money-bought romance did not last long. When he discovers that his theft has been made known in the new papers, and all the stolen money has ran out, he knew he had to go back to his real life. After a week of having the glamorized life he was longing for, Paul refused to go back to face the reality that he left behind in Pittsburgh. Paul knew he couldn’t go on forever in the City with no money in his pockets so he decided to give up on his own life. While going to get on his train that would bring him back to reality, Paul stepped out in front of it and killed himself.

During this time, Paul contemplates a plan to ask his father for a cab fare. He will tell his father that the money is to make it over to his friend’s house, when he is really planning on making his way to New York City. This escape to New York City is a way out of his life that he is struggling to get through. “The east-bound train was ploughing through a January snowstorm...” (Cather). Now, aboard a train to New Jersey, Paul is longing for the beauty of New York. After the train stops in Newark, Paul hopes to spend a night or two in town and then get on board another train that will take him to New York. The time part of the setting impacts the story greatly, since the story is based in the winter. Winter represents the end of things in literature and it is in this winter, that Paul goes on to commit suicide.

had a strange glare to them...". The sad irony for Paul though was that money couldn't buy that happiness that he wanted his mother to have.