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Jason Perry
Expository Writing
Mrs. Schukman
December 7, 1999
The Settings of "Paul’s Case" and "A Sunrise on the Veld"
Africa and Pittsburgh, PA, two totally different places, are the settings for "Paul’s Case" and "A Sunrise on the Veld." However, the settings in these two stories play in important role in their story lines. The homes they live in are important in the main character’s view of the world. The environment they live in drives the main characters to perform the acts they believe they must do. Finally, the setting of the main event of the stories contrasts where most of the two stories take place. What ever the differences or similarities in setting the stories have, the setting drives the characters to either run away and commit suicide, as is "Paul’s case" by Wilma Cather, or hunt birds and perform some deep thoughts, like the boy in "A Sunrise on the Veld" by Doris Lessing. The mindsets of the two boys however begin at home.
The homes of the two boys are the starting of points for the attitudes of the two boys. Paul, from "Paul’s Case," detests his home and the people that dwell in it. He describes, pessimistically, his home in striking detail. "The nearer he approached the house, the more absolutely unequal Paul felt to the sight of it all; his ugly bed chamber, the cold bath-room with the grimy zinc tub, the cracked mirror, the dripping spiggots…that he would not toss again in that miserable bed." This quote demonstrates fully his distaste for his house; he makes a big deal about every little problem in the house. He even sleeps in the basement, both to avoid his dad and also to avoid seeing the same drab things all the time. He also worries about the "wildlife" in his house. "He found a soap-box, and carried it over to the soft ring of light that streamed from the furnace door, and sat down. He was horribly afraid of rats." Clearly, Paul does not take to kindly to the rodent folk. This fear of the unknown and critters does not afflict the boy from "A Sunrise on the Veld."
"A Sunrise on the Veld" does not go into vast amount of detail about the boy’s house. From the story, it can be gleaned that the boy is not afraid to be neither in the house nor near any of the other occupants of it. He has a desire to leave the house. Much like Paul, the boy wants to be far from his home doing his own thing. He even waits patiently waiting for an appointed time to leave. "It was half-past four to the minute, every morning…just as he set the alarm each night for the delight of the moment when he woke." Unlike Paul, the boy does not dread the house, does not sulk in his mind what the house represents. To the boy, the house is just something you sleep at and then leave from in the morning. He feels more self-reliance then dread when he is his house; he believes he is the master of his domain. Both boys do feel comfortable in one place, away from the home!
Paul spends most of his time, or wishes he does, away from home. He does so in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, at Carnegie Hall in downtown Pittsburgh. He is comfortable there at Carnegie Hall, the only place he does feel comfortable. "Somewhat calmed by his suppression, Paul dashed out to the front of the house [Carnegie Hall] to seat the early comers. He was a model usher. Gracious and smiling he ran up and down the aisles." Paul was comfortable in a busy city with a bunch of actors. He was later forced to agree never to go there again, so Paul ran away to New York. New York is once again a busy city with more pushy people, and more actors. Not until late in the story is Paul in any kind of natural environment. Paul is always comfortable in a busy city. Not so for the boy of "Sunrise."
"A Sunrise on the Veld" takes place in the savanna of Africa, worlds apart from Pittsburgh or New York. In the savanna, the birds, deer, and other animals run the show, not pushy business people. To this world, like Paul at Carnegie Hall, the boy of "Sunrise" escapes. He runs happily through the grasslands of Africa without a care in the world. "He ran in great leaping strides, and shouted as he ran, feeling his body rise into the crisp rushing air and fall back surely on to sure foot…in this thick tangled grass. He cleared bushes like a duiker, leapt over rocks; and finally came to a dead stop at a place where the ground fell abruptly away below him to the river." He is also comfortable away from home, but instead of in a large concert hall like Carnegie Hall, but in the outdoors, with wildlife, the bigger versions of the "wildlife" that Paul fears in his basement. The settings for the main event however, change in both stories.
Paul lives his life in the city. He lives in Pittsburgh, then he runs away to an even larger city, New York. But these events occur in cities. When the climax in the story comes, when Paul jumps in front of a train, its is in a forest, out in nature. "When Paul arrived at Newark, he got off the train and took another cab, directing the driver to follow the Pennsylvania tracks out of the town. The snow lay heavy on the roadways and had drifted deep in the open fields. Only here and there the dead grass or dried weed stalks projected, singularly black, above it." The setting contrasts the cities where most of the story is set. Here he is in contact with nature, a nature he feared in his home. Here he chooses to die. Like Paul, the boy’s big moment is in the woods.
Most of "Sunrise" is set in the open grasslands of the savanna. The climax of the story, however, shifts to the edge of a wooded area. Here, the boy sees a buck die and get eaten by ants. But this happens in a different environment than those grasslands of before. The woods are more confined, more like a city with out the rude people, while the savanna was open and free, something he is more comfortable and safer in. The woods are dark and unfriendly to the boy and see a buck get eaten by ants is not a healthy way to become familiar with them. The climax of "Paul’s Case" and "Sunrise" are similar in that the both contrast the setting of the rest of the story, but they differ in the outcome for the main characters.
"Paul’s Case" and "A Sunrise on the Veld" have completely different settings. However, if one gets beyond that fact, one begins to see similarities. The similarities have nothing to do with the physical properties of the setting for one could never find a similarity between the savanna of Africa and Pittsburgh. The similarities have to do with the settings’ "place" in the story. The description of the setting reflects the character’s attitude and in turn the character’s attitude is often defined by the stories setting. So whatever the differences in the actual places the story takes place in, the setting drives the character to perform his final act in the story, whether that is to kill ones self or to grow up.
