Willa Cathers Paul‟s Case: A Study in Temperament Essay examples -- P

Willa Cather‟s â€Å"Paul‟s Case: A Study in Temperament† (1905) invites the reader to wonder, â€Å"What really is Paul‟s case?† Cather provides us with ample clues and descriptions of Paul‟s temperament with remarkable detail and insight into the human psyche considering that she had no formal background in psychology and that she was writing when Sigmund Freud was just beginning to publish his theories and was therefore writing by intuitive observation rather than by using a scientific approach. Because â€Å"Paul‟s Case† is written much like a descriptive analysis or case study in a patient‟s temperament, the reader is left with several details about Paul that are mysterious and psychiatrically and medically unexplained. The lack of a diagnosis for Paul has led many critics to develop their own diagnosis – some say Paul is a stereotypical homosexual, has Asperger‟s Syndrome or Autism, or that he has a combinati on of depression and anxiety. In my opinion, however, the most likely diagnosis for Paul is that he suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. According to the DSM-IV, people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are â€Å"preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love† (Criterion 2) and believe that they are â€Å"„special‟ and unique and can only be understood by, or should be associated with, other special or high-status people† (Criterion 3). Paul‟s clothing gives us our first clue to his narcissistic attitudes about himself; in Cather‟s description of Paul‟s dress, it is apparent that Paul is attempting to rise above his lower-class status by mimicking the upper class‟ appearance. The collar of Paul‟s overcoat is velvet, and â€Å"there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an... ...her was writing about a social disorder that had not yet been identified or studied. Despite the lack of knowledge about Narcissistic Personality Disorder when Cather wrote this short story, she provides readers with plenty of details to diagnose the boy themselves. Narcissism is the only diagnosis that can explain all of Paul‟s attitudes and behaviors, and that is why it is the disorder that he must be suffering from. Works Cited Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV. Arlington, VA.: American Psychiatric Association, 2007. Print. Larry Rubin. "The Homosexual Motif in Willa Cather's "Paul's Case"" Studies in Short Fiction (1975): 127-31. Print. Perkins, Barbara, Robyn Warhol-Down, and George B. Perkins. "Paul's Case: A Study in Temperament." Women's Work: an Anthology of American Literature. New York: McGrawHill, 1994. Print.