Although audience never reads about how Paul’s peers treat him, it is obvious that he is afraid of his father who verbally abuses him and dislikes his teachers who cannot understand him. Teachers make Paul feel secondary to the other classmates, they don’t bother with helping him to study and by doing so cease Paul’s desire to learn. If teachers ever made an effort to understand him and help him cope with reality maybe he would never ignore them and get in trouble. If his needs were ever clarified maybe he would never feel the need to make fun of school. Unfortunately Paul is made to feel like an outsider. Perhaps father’s abuse and teachers’ neglect help to destroy his already low self esteem. Paul does not feel like teachers accounted him deserving of their company and time and so he reciprocated the situation to mean that school was not worthy of his company and time. In order to escape miserable reality he starts to live his own lie and “believes” that he is better than anyone else. Paul detests his home, the street that he lives on and his school.
The descriptions of school and home by Paul are ultimate dullness. He feels that in his classroom he walks on bare floors, sees naked walls, and he listens to teachers in ugly gowns. Paul pictures his home in deteriorated colors: “horrible yellow wallpaper” and “creaking bureau" and it becomes clear Paul is not fond of his house either.
However when readers get to know Paul at Carnegie Hall where he works as an usher after school, they get to know Paul’s true love of life. At the theater Paul feels as if he is set free, he adores music and theater. The symphonies he hears while working make him feel alive. Cather writes, "It was very much as though this were a great reception and Paul were the host." While working as an usher at Carnegie Hall, Paul feels he is living a dream, he feels he is in a fairy tale. At Carnegie Hall he feels like prisoner who was set free. When being in the same building with rich and famous he feels this is the type of life he is supposed to live and this is where he belongs.
Paul has to make the transition from one world to another every day. From hated school he goes to work and feels the fullness and pleasure of life and from work he has to return to home which he dreads and fears. It is easy to understand the inner conflict Paul has to battle every day of his life. This is the conflict that drives him to steal money and escape to New York. He buys clothing he knows rich and famous ware, rents a room at the Waldorf and becomes a true citizen of his dreams. For eight days of his life Paul makes his imaginary life transform into reality. He drinks champagnes and rides in carriages, “he could not remember a time when he had felt so at peace with himself.” This is the type of life he lasted after and this is the person he wanted others to know he was. Even though Paul is happy and at peace, he knows all good things must come to an end.
When Paul realizes that he has to go back and live his ordinary life again, his heart and soul cannot convey the impact of such a climactic transformation. Paul understands he has to face his father, truth will come out, his imaginations would be conveyed as lies, and he would never again live in such luster. As Paul jumps infront of train and faces death he is still thinking about the nice things he will never do and about the life he will never live.
