Paul and Jing-meis Case - Essay Example

Paul and Jing-mei’s Case Paul, the young character in Willa Cather’s short story “Paul’s Case” and the young Chinese girl Jing-mei in Amy Tan’s story “Two Kinds” are very similar literary characters in so many ways. Both characters show an incredible amount of insecurity and low self-esteem, and are driven by the haunting desire to be something more than merely “ordinary.” Both characters lie compulsively to themselves and to their friends and families, and want desperately to change anything about themselves, their towns, or their lives. Both are struggling to get through the rough years between being a child, and becoming an adult; crucial, formative years used for testing the boundaries between themselves, their parents, and their environments. Yet the main character Jing-mei in Amy Tan’s story seems to be dealing with an overbearing mother and a feeling of uneasiness that many teenagers would report as common. However Paul, the main character in Paul’s Case is dealing with much deeper, more severe issues. Even with an involved and loving father, teachers and coworkers who care, and a solid middle class upbringing, Paul is suffering from a lack of any “maternal presence.” “The negative associations between observations of maternal warmth, and teacher and official reports of delinquency, are robust, persisting even after controlling for child IQ, age, attachment to delinquent peers, ethnicity, poverty, family size, parental deviance, supervision and discipline (Sampson & Laub, 1994). Although on the surface these two characters seem to be exhibiting similar symptoms and behaviors, Jing-mei’s complaints are few, and can be construed as age appropriate cries for a young adolescent girl. Conversely, Paul’s actions, intentions and emotions are actually serious cries for help. Right away readers can see Jing-mei and Paul are both suffering from severe inferiority complexes. Both are unhappy with their physical appearances, deathly afraid of being “ordinary,” and both feel totally inadequate around their friends and peers. Jing-mei says to her self, “Before going to bed that night I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and I saw only my face staring back - and understood that it would always be this ordinary face - I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high - pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror (Tan 03).” The confused young Chinese girl argues with her mother and snaps, "Why dont you like me the way I am?" I cried. "Im not a genius (Tan 02)!” Throughout the story Jing-mei is constantly wishing or day dreaming she was someone or somewhere else more fantastic, “I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtain… I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger… I was Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage… (Tan 02).” Jing-mei and Paul frequently use daydreams and constant lying as forms of escapism. “In all of my imaginings I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect: My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk, or to clamor for anything (Tan 02).” Clinically speaking, Jing-mei is voicing an opinion that is common and healthy adolescent development. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry deems Jing-mei’s behavior as normal movement toward adult independence, citing: “struggles with sense of identity, feeling awkward and strange with about one’s body and appearance, and Hyper-focus on self, alternating between high expectations and low self esteem,” (AACAP 2008) as normal, expressive movements towards social independence. Jing-mei is simply voicing a few of the feelings many children and teenagers feel during adolescence. Paul’s similar opinions and expressions of himself however, force him not only to live amongst his daydreams, but to actually concoct unbelievable stories about foreign travel and fake friendships with famous actors and actresses. To lie boldfaced to friends and faculty alike about terminally ill sisters, or dream intricately for hours about his father accidentally killing him in the house cellar. These elaborate stories help him to ease the true hopelessness he constantly feels in his day-to-day life, “the necessity of petty lying, lying every day and every day, restored his self-respect. He had never lied for pleasure, even at school; but to be noticed and admired, to assert his difference from other Cordelia Street boys, (Cather 08).” Paul has developed his lying into a coping mechanism he uses to help cover the symptoms of a much more serious problem. Much more than Jing-mei, Paul hides behind these daydreams and lies to assuage his overwhelming fear, “he realized well enough that he had always been tormented by fear, a sort of apprehensive dread that, of late years, as the meshes of the lies he had told closed about him, had been pulling the muscles of his body tighter and tighter. Until now he could not remember the time when he had not been dreading something (Cather 13).” Paul is not simply a little Chinese girl lying to her parents about piano practice; he is a young man lying to everyone around him (including himself) about his sanity. The formidable years between stepping into one’s adult life and stepping out of childhood are extremely difficult for Paul and Jing-mei both. Their characters seem to be actively testing and pushing the boundaries between their world and that of the adult world. This constant questioning of authority by Paul and Jing-mei has them both engaged in deeply personal battles against their parents. The black and white borders between child and adulthood are beginning to gray, and they are having trouble distinguishing when and what kind of adult they will become. Jing-mei is overwhelmed by the possibility that she may never become a genius, and thus constantly be a disappointment to her over-bearing mother. When the two argue over Jing-mei’s discipline towards piano practice, Jing-mei lashes out and grossly oversteps the boundary between child and adult; “I wish I had never been born... I wish I was dead like them (Tan 10)!” Even this flippant outburst is considered by AACAP to be age appropriate behavior, “Complaints that parents interfere with independence and a strong tendency to resort to childish behaviors when stressed,” (AACAP 2008). This childish outburst is actually the climax of the story and indeed the point in Jing-mei’s own life when the fragile dynamic between mother and daughter changes forever. Jing-mei snaps at her mother like a child, but uses angry, cutting, spiteful adult words. Consequently at this point her mother begins to see her and treat her as one. Paul is not only testing, but actively tearing through the boundaries and borderlines between child and adulthood. He experiments with the adult ideas about drugs, money and sex. He drinks alcohol and smokes packs of cigarettes, steals a thousand dollars and blows it all on clothes, hotel rooms and fancy dinners. He picks up a young man from Yale and stays out all night, “They had started out in the confiding warmth of a champagne friendship, but their parting in the elevator was singularly cool. The freshman pulled himself together to make his train, and Paul went to bed,” (Cather 21). The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry agrees “Adolescent experimentation with rule limits and testing in regards to alcohol, sex, and drugs, is considered normal behavior for late adolescence,” (AACPT). Paul simply keeps pushing the limits a far as his young mind thinks they can go. Even after his father pays back the thousand dollars, and Denny and Carson Co. agree not to press charges, it still takes the “irreversible leap” in front of the Pennsylvania bound train for Paul to realize how far he has pushed, and how much unfinished life he still has to live. “As he fell, the folly of his haste occurred to him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left undone. There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, the blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands.” (Cather 22). In Paul’s case he pushes the boundaries a bit too hard, and no one is there to help pull him back. Sadly this brings the reader to the real difference between Willa Cather’s character Paul, and Amy Tan’s young character Jing-mei. Although they are different ages, races, and genders the real difference lies in the severity of their problems. Jing-mei feels oppressed under the iron rule of her Chinese mother, and yet is lovingly and supportively pressured. Every child at one time or another can say they’ve felt that same pressure to be perfect, and that same disconnection from their parents. Jing-mei is suffering through same turmoil all pre-teenagers have to deal with, and as the reader knows, she comes out the other side unharmed and much wiser. Paul on the other hand is under tremendous suffering, and Willa Cather only scrapes the surface with his symptoms. Early in the story, one of Paul’s councilors hints as to the real problem, “The boy is not strong, for one thing. I happen to know that he was born in Colorado, only a few months before his mother died out there of a long illness, (Cather 07).” Paul is likely suffering from an undiagnosed case of “Pre-occupied and/or Avoidant attachment.” Defined by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry as “parental warmth, responsiveness and availability (AACAP 2008),” attacment is vital to all youth for developing a healthy coping strategy, essential for happiness throughout life. “Adolescents who report a positive relationship with their parents, and who feel comfortable turning to them for support, have been found to have a greater sense of mastery of their worlds (Paterson, Pryor & Field, 1995) and to experience less loneliness, and suicidality (Kerns & Stevens, 1996)”. Paul despises his father and their relationship, and has never had a mother to turn to for any warmth, responsiveness, or support. Clinically speaking Paul’s is a textbook case for mental health problem manifesting itself as a clinically diagnosable attachment issue. In fact his age, 15, coincides exactly with the adolescent onset of “Pre-occupied and/or avoidant attachments.” “For example, more positive attachment to parents among 15-year-olds has been found to be associated with fewer mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, inattention and conduct problems (Nada-Raja, McGee & Stanton, 1992). “Though attachment was not specifically assessed, adolescents who report a positive relationship with their parents, and who feel comfortable turning to them for support, have been found to have a greater sense of mastery of their worlds” (Paterson, Pryor & Field, 1995) and report to “experience less loneliness, and suicidal tendencies” (Kerns & Stevens, 1996). Paul exhibits a short attention span, habitual lying, low self-esteem, over-anxiousness around peers (to the point they have to sit on top of him to suppress him), and has well thought over plan about killing himself. When taken as separate, these behaviors seem somehow smaller than they really are; and calling his a problem with authority or labeling him disorderly, impertinent, or hysterically defiant masks the intense underlying issue. Taken as a whole, the pieces together form the picture of a clinically diagnosable and dangerously unstable teenager with real mental and emotional problems. Problems that when left unchecked and uncared for ultimately cost Paul his life. Works Cited 1. Cather, Willa. “Paul’s Case: The Troll Garden. Electronic Bookshelf Ltd; Jan. 2001, retrieved- Dec. 04, 2008 http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/resource/bookshelf/troll10 2. Tan, Amy. “Two Kinds.” 1989; Angel Fire reprinting, November 2005. retrieved Dec. 03, 2008 www.angelfire.com/ma/MyGuardianangels/index9.html. 3. Kerns, Kathryn A. & Amy C. Stevens. “Parent-child attachment in late adolescence: Links to social relations and personality,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 25,3 (1996): 323-342. 4. Nada-Raja, Shyamala, Rob McGee, & Warren R. Stanton. “Perceived attachments to parents and peers and psychological well-being in adolescence,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 21,4 (1992): 471-485.  5. Patterson, Janis, Jan Pryor, & Jeff Field. “Adolescent attachment to parents and friends in relation to aspects of self-esteem,” Early-Childhood and Adolescence, 24,3 (1995): 365-376 6. “Normal Adolescent Behaviors Part I,” American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. No.57, Updated June 2001. Copyright (AACAB 2008) www.aacap.org/cs/roots/facts_for_familes/normal/p_i . Read More

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry deems Jing-mei’s behavior as normal movement toward adult independence, citing: “struggles with sense of identity, feeling awkward and strange with about one’s body and appearance, and Hyper-focus on self, alternating between high expectations and low self esteem,” (AACAP 2008) as normal, expressive movements towards social independence. Jing-mei is simply voicing a few of the feelings many children and teenagers feel during adolescence.

Paul’s similar opinions and expressions of himself however, force him not only to live amongst his daydreams, but to actually concoct unbelievable stories about foreign travel and fake friendships with famous actors and actresses. To lie boldfaced to friends and faculty alike about terminally ill sisters, or dream intricately for hours about his father accidentally killing him in the house cellar. These elaborate stories help him to ease the true hopelessness he constantly feels in his day-to-day life, “the necessity of petty lying, lying every day and every day, restored his self-respect.

He had never lied for pleasure, even at school; but to be noticed and admired, to assert his difference from other Cordelia Street boys, (Cather 08).” Paul has developed his lying into a coping mechanism he uses to help cover the symptoms of a much more serious problem. Much more than Jing-mei, Paul hides behind these daydreams and lies to assuage his overwhelming fear, “he realized well enough that he had always been tormented by fear, a sort of apprehensive dread that, of late years, as the meshes of the lies he had told closed about him, had been pulling the muscles of his body tighter and tighter.

Until now he could not remember the time when he had not been dreading something (Cather 13).” Paul is not simply a little Chinese girl lying to her parents about piano practice; he is a young man lying to everyone around him (including himself) about his sanity. The formidable years between stepping into one’s adult life and stepping out of childhood are extremely difficult for Paul and Jing-mei both. Their characters seem to be actively testing and pushing the boundaries between their world and that of the adult world.

This constant questioning of authority by Paul and Jing-mei has them both engaged in deeply personal battles against their parents. The black and white borders between child and adulthood are beginning to gray, and they are having trouble distinguishing when and what kind of adult they will become. Jing-mei is overwhelmed by the possibility that she may never become a genius, and thus constantly be a disappointment to her over-bearing mother. When the two argue over Jing-mei’s discipline towards piano practice, Jing-mei lashes out and grossly oversteps the boundary between child and adult; “I wish I had never been born.

I wish I was dead like them (Tan 10)!” Even this flippant outburst is considered by AACAP to be age appropriate behavior, “Complaints that parents interfere with independence and a strong tendency to resort to childish behaviors when stressed,” (AACAP 2008). This childish outburst is actually the climax of the story and indeed the point in Jing-mei’s own life when the fragile dynamic between mother and daughter changes forever. Jing-mei snaps at her mother like a child, but uses angry, cutting, spiteful adult words.

Consequently at this point her mother begins to see her and treat her as one. Paul is not only testing, but actively tearing through the boundaries and borderlines between child and adulthood. He experiments with the adult ideas about drugs, money and sex. He drinks alcohol and smokes packs of cigarettes, steals a thousand dollars and blows it all on clothes, hotel rooms and fancy dinners. He picks up a young man from Yale and stays out all night, “They had started out in the confiding warmth of a champagne friendship, but their parting in the elevator was singularly cool.

Read More