Affirmations of Faith

Both Paul of Paul’s Case and Leroy of Shiloh  are unhappy with their lives, though they live in extremely different circumstances. Paul’s unhappiness stems from his condition in society, while Leroy’s stems from his condition in his marriage. Regardless of these differences, Paul and Leroy view the solutions to their problems in a similar way. They both have an obsession with a goal that they feel will improve their lives: Paul’s is attainment of wealth and culture, Leroy’s is building a log cabin. Despite each character’s faith in his goal, these goals end up ruining their lives as opposed to improving them. The structure of these stories allows the authors to frequently remind the reader of these goals, and this makes their results all the more poignant.

Paul and Leroy are both obsessed with a plan to do something grand. Paul desires to escape, as he isn’t satisfied with his life. He doesn’t like the people around him, he doesn’t like where he lives, and he doesn’t like his social status. He’s frequently finding ways to escape, most often through music and theatre. These give him a temporary break from his life, but he has ideas of something more permanent. Throughout the story, Paul yearns for wealth, beauty, and culture, and he sees escaping to New York City as his path to attaining them. Paul is obsessed with this idea of leaving for New York, and he has planned his escape a hundred times. Similarly, Leroy is set on his plans to build a log cabin for him and his wife. He’s fixated on the idea that building this cabin will mend his marriage. His marriage has been going South since he injured himself and could no longer drive his truck. His wife seems to have preferred having him not around, and he believes building them a house will make her happy again.

Each character believes strongly in their plans. When Leroy’s wife makes a comment that upsets him, he’ll simply mention the log cabin and how nice it’ll be to live in their own house. Like Paul, who has planned his escape to New York a hundred times, Leroy pours over the blueprints for the log cabin almost every day. This constant affirmation from the author of Leroy’s faith in the log cabin to fix his marriage makes the moment when he realizes that he’s wrong significantly more poignant. His dream that has been built up for the duration of the story has been crushed. The reader doesn’t learn Leroy’s fate however, unlike Paul’s Case. Paul’s reaction to the loss of his dream is clear to the reader. When his dreams are crushed after running to New York with stolen money and subsequently being found out, he cannot bear to live his old life again. If the reader didn’t know that Paul has planned this escape a hundred times, she or he may not take his reaction as seriously. The assurance of Paul’s faith in his dream gives insight to suicide.

Cather and Mason structure their stories by using repetition of the protagonists’ goals to add poignancy and strength to their conclusions. Because the conclusions of these stories require insight to the characters’ minds to be understood, this strategy works well. Both Leroy’s and Paul’s dreams are shattered, and though they react in different ways, these reactions are made stronger by continuous affirmations of their faith in these dreams.