Paul's Case
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Paul's Case trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Willa Cather's "Paul's Case" is a fixture of American literature classes, and one of the most argued-over short stories on the syllabus. In a few thousand words it follows a restless schoolboy who cannot bear the ordinary life laid out for him, and who gambles everything on a brief taste of the glamour he craves. This quiz walks through the whole story: the opening hearing, the concert hall and the theatre, the dreary home he dreads, the escape and its ending. It also covers the details readers remember, from what he wears to the music he hears, along with questions on Cather's own life and on how the story was published and adapted. It suits students revising for a class test, educators after ready-made questions, and book-club readers who want to see how much they noticed. Every answer comes with a short explanation, and the questions run from easy plot points to details only close readers catch.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In "Paul's Case", what does Paul wear in his buttonhole to face the faculty who want him punished?
A red carnation
A red carnation struck the faculty as anything but contrite, and Cather describes even Paul's parting bow as a repetition of that scandalous bloom.
Q 02Which evening job at Carnegie Hall lets Paul lose himself in the concerts in "Paul's Case"?
Usher
Usher was the one role in which Paul shone: gracious and smiling, he treated the hall like a great reception at which he was the host.
Q 03In which industrial city does Paul live with his father before running away in "Paul's Case"?
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh was home to Cather herself for a decade, and she fills the story with its landmarks, from the concert hall to the grand hotel nearby.
Q 04To which city does Paul run for a week of luxury near the end of "Paul's Case"?
New York
New York hotels filled pages of Paul's scrapbook, and the grand hotel he picks stood on the spot where the Empire State Building now rises.
Q 05Which grand hotel does Paul check into, taking a bedroom, sitting room and bath, in "Paul's Case"?
The Waldorf
The Waldorf gives Paul its rooms without question, because he offers to pay in advance and claims his parents are due back from abroad.
Q 06Having decided against the gun he bought, how does Paul end his life in "Paul's Case"?
He jumps before a train
He jumps before a train in open country, and in his last instant regrets his haste, seeing the far-off places he will now never visit.
Q 07How does Paul get the money for his escape from his home city in "Paul's Case"?
He steals his firm's deposit
He steals his firm's deposit on the way to the bank, pocketing nearly a thousand dollars in notes; his father later repays every cent.
Q 08At the start of "Paul's Case", why is Paul summoned to explain himself to his high school's faculty?
He has been suspended
He has been suspended for a week over disorder and impertinence, though his instructors feel the real offence is the contempt he barely hides.
Q 09Where in his home city does Paul live, among identical houses he loathes, in "Paul's Case"?
Cordelia Street
Cordelia Street, to Paul, is where the waters close over his head: every house alike and every family bound for Sabbath school.
Q 10Willa Cather, author of "Paul's Case", became famous for novels about pioneers in which state?
Nebraska
Nebraska shaped O Pioneers! and My Ántonia, yet Cather set this early story far from the prairie, in the smoky city where she was then living.
Q 11In "Paul's Case", which drink at dinner makes Paul wonder that honest men exist at all?
Champagne
Champagne, cold and foaming in his glass, convinces Paul that this is what all the world is fighting for.
Q 12At which famous jeweller does Paul choose silver and a scarf pin during his spree in "Paul's Case"?
Tiffany's
Tiffany's, founded in 1837 and known for its sterling silver, gets a hurried customer: Paul will not wait to have his purchases engraved.
Q 13What colour is the horrible wallpaper in Paul's bedroom, which he dreads waking to in "Paul's Case"?
Yellow
Yellow wallpaper haunts Paul so much that he sleeps with the hotel lights on, so that he can never wake and fear he is back home.
Q 21In "Paul's Case", what does Paul send a bellboy to fetch as the one thing his hotel room lacks?
Flowers
Flowers complete the picture he has rehearsed a hundred times; he sets jonquils on a table by the couch and only then lies down to rest.
Q 22Before writing "Paul's Case", Willa Cather taught which ancient language to high school pupils?
Latin
Latin was the class in which Cather met a nervous boy who bragged of his actor friends, and she later said he supplied one half of Paul.
Q 23Which young actor in "Paul's Case" lets Paul loiter in his dressing room at the stock company?
Charley Edwards
Charley Edwards cannot afford a dresser, so Paul makes himself useful; once Paul is pulled out of school, the actor promises Paul's father not to see him again.
Q 14Hiding in the cellar all night in "Paul's Case", Paul dares not sleep for fear of what?
Rats
Rats keep him awake on a soapbox by the furnace door, where he passes the hours picturing how his father would react to finding him.
Q 15In "Paul's Case", Paul pictures his father in the cellar, pistol in hand, taking him for what?
A burglar
A burglar is only the start: Paul goes on to wonder whether his father might one day wish that no warning cry had stayed his hand.
Q 16Whose portrait hangs beside George Washington's over Paul's bed in "Paul's Case"?
John Calvin
John Calvin, the Reformation theologian of Geneva, stands for the churchgoing household Paul is desperate to leave behind.
Q 17Who tries to guide Paul's hand at the blackboard in "Paul's Case", only to see him shudder away?
His English teacher
His English teacher never forgets the insult, leads the attack at the hearing, and later has to take her concert seat from Paul himself.
Q 18Which stranger from San Francisco takes Paul out for a night on the town in "Paul's Case"?
A Yale freshman
A Yale freshman shows Paul the night side of town until seven the next morning, yet the two part coolly in the hotel elevator.
Q 19Which scent does Paul hide in a drawer and use after helping with the dishes in "Paul's Case"?
Violet water
Violet water masks the greasy dishwater and the ill-smelling soap he hates, a small secret luxury in a house that allows him none.
Q 20In "Paul's Case", where does the drawing master say Paul was born, shortly before his mother died?
Colorado
Colorado is where his mother died of a long illness when he was only months old, a loss the drawing master links to Paul's haunted smile.
Q 24In "Paul's Case", Paul leaves his hearing whistling the Soldiers' Chorus from which French opera?
Faust
Faust, Charles Gounod's opera of 1859, gives Paul a jaunty tune to whistle while he looks back to see whether any of the faculty are watching.
Q 25Near the end of "Paul's Case", what does Paul do with a drooping blossom from his coat?
Buries it in the snow
He buries it in the snow, reflecting that hothouse blooms get only one splendid breath before the winter outside the glass wins.
Q 26Which school subject does Paul pretend to need help with to cover a theatre visit in "Paul's Case"?
Geometry
Geometry goes out of the door tucked conspicuously under his arm, along with a dime in carfare wrung from his reluctant father.
Q 27At a cast of which famous statue does Paul make an evil gesture on the stairs in "Paul's Case"?
Venus de Milo
Venus de Milo, the armless marble kept in the Louvre, gets the rude gesture; a cast of Augustus has to settle for a pulled face.
Q 28Which subtitle did Willa Cather give "Paul's Case" when the story first appeared in a magazine?
A Study in Temperament
A Study in Temperament suits the clinical title: school and father alike treat Paul as a case to be handled rather than a boy to be understood.
Q 29Which collection, Willa Cather's first book of stories, ends with "Paul's Case" as its seventh tale?
The Troll Garden
The Troll Garden came out in 1905, and Cather later reworked four of its tales, this one included, for a second collection in 1920.
Q 30Which First World War novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Willa Cather, author of "Paul's Case"?
One of Ours
One of Ours took the 1923 prize with the tale of a farmer's son who goes to war, though Ernest Hemingway mocked its battle scenes as borrowed from film.