Willa Cather's story, "Paul's Case: A Study in Temperament," is both a very sad story and one where the reader does not have very much sympathy for the main character. Cather's uses the words "case," "study," and "temperament" to establish a series of complicated reactions in the reader. The initial reaction is to reject the cold sound of the words and try to understand and sympathize with Paul. By the end of the story, however, the reader is willing to accept the words and to understand why they might have been used in the first place. The way the story is told expands on the harsh words and makes it clear, after trying the alternatives, that there is no other way the reader can see Paul. Even though the reader never develops sympathy for the boy, it is impossible not to feel compassion for him. But it is distant compassion that a person might feel for someone who was an example of behavior and a state of mind that are completely alien.
As the story opens, the reader decides to side with the boy. The idea of being "called to appear before the faculty" and the rather pathetic appearance of the boy in his "frayed and worn" coat grab the reader's sympathy from the start (411). But Cather immediately introduces what puzzles the faculty. The fact that there was "something of the dandy about him" and the "red carnation in his button-hole" also strike the reader as odd (411). But the last sentence of the paragraph returns the reader's sympathy to the boy. The anonymous faculty's disapproval of his appearance as "not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension" sounds stuffy and self-important. The reader thinks of how terrible it can be for a boy to be placed in a situation like this and how unreasonable and stiff adults, especially teachers, can be if everything is not exactly the way that they think it should be.
In one paragraph, the reader has swung back and forth in his o...