Main Characters In Pau'S Case And I'M A Fool Essay

The main characters in “Paul’s Case” and “I’m a Fool”

    The stories "Paul's Case" written by Willa Cather and “I’m a Fool” written by Sherwood Anderson have two separate characters with similar troubles. Paul’s Case is a short story where the main character, Paul is a depressed young high school student whose feelings of superiority and desire for the finer things in life make him an outcast in his own. In I’m a Fool the protagonist tells the story in the first person. Using the first person point of view, he tells us the story when he was a slightly uneducated young man trying to fit into a particular kind of world, one which he admired greatly, but he seemed to miss the opportunity to make his mark. The characters are motivated by the same dream of separating themselves from there common, everyday life and the people they share it with and they both use deception to fulfill their dreams Both characters have an inferiority complex which is revealed by their lying and how they look down on people with same background as theirs. Even though the characters are comparable and share these things they are different. Paul is the embodiment of a socially outcast man who cannot find his place and whom no one understands, he ultimately takes his own life. Where as the main character in I’m a Fool learns that his actions have consequences that will haunt him for a very long time; if not his hole life.
    Paul believes that Cordelia Street, his parish, is ugly, while the larger world holds endless promises of beauty. When he looks down Cordelia Street, he feels "waters close over his head" (Cather 123) but is refreshed after hearing a German soloist "that world shine upon her" (Cather 121). Paul is always dreaming about “movin on up” and struggled to separate himself from his peers. Paul rejects the middle class life that surrounds him with all its ordinary things, from the ill-smelling soap to the Sunday gatherings of Cordelia Street. Paul admires the opulence of...