While suicide is frequently preceded by social isolation (Potter and Perry 358), in Doris Lessing’s “To Room 19” and Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case,” both protagonists choose to commit suicide after isolating themselves socially from their worlds. More directly, Lessing’s protagonist Susan’s mental health severely declines after discovering her husband’s infidelity. When the freedom she finds amongst her mental chaos is challenged, she sees no other option other than to end her life. Similarly, Cather’s protagonist Paul gets to live the life of affluence he has always desired away from his father, but when his grim reality sets in, he chooses to end his life tragically. Although each of their paths to suicide is different, there is an uncanny similarity between their social isolation, newfound sense of freedom, and subsequent suicides. It is through this analysis that I will compare and contrast the protagonists from “To Room 19” and “Paul’s Case” by suggesting that both Susan and Paul’s social isolation liberates them from their otherwise undesirable social circumstances.
Lessing introduces Susan as a practical woman who lives in a beautiful house with four charming children and a marriage that is “grounded in intelligence” (Lessing 868). Objectively, her life appears perfect to the reader: “They had everything they wanted, everything they had planned for” (Lessing 868). However, her husband’s infidelity marks a significant change in her life, which invariably causes a steep decline in her mental health. While her logical mind forces her to rationalize her feelings of anguish, Susan refuses to admit the pain it causes her. She becomes resentful toward her husband, estranges herself from her children, and is “more and more threatened by emptiness” (Lessing 871). She begins to crave freedom from the world that she created with her husband and goes off searching for the self she once knew, only to discover the restlessness of her soul. In direct contrast, however, Cather does not explicitly reveal the reason behind Paul’s struggles, nor does isolation precipitate from one single event. Instead, the reader recognizes that Paul's behavior stems from a place of both loneliness and insecurity. His mother died when he was young, and he now lives with his father in the poor area of Pittsburgh. In Paul’s eyes, his home represents “ugliness and commonness” (Cather 239). He attempts to seek attention of those around him, highlighted by his “scandalous red carnation” (Cather 236), but his efforts were received with indignation. He appears haughty and insolent to his teachers, tells lavishly false stories in hopes of impressing his classmates, and “teased and plagued” (Cather 237) the other boys at the theatre. Unlike Susan’s experience, Paul has always been mostly alone in his world. Because both protagonists are unhappy within their current social circumstances, they choose to flee in the hopes of finding happiness. Susan leaves her perfect home and finds a dreary hotel room is her only chance for serenity. Room 19 was “hideous,” (Lessing 883) but being completely alone, anonymous, and without responsibilities becomes Susan’s only consolation amongst her ever declining mental state. In spite of the fact that she is working towards recovery, as soon as Susan’s husband discovers her whereabouts, Room 19 no longer provides her with the same sense of freedom as it once did.
Like Susan, Paul escapes his reality in search of happiness. While Susan flees her world because of pain, Paul leaves his home in revolt of his father banishing him from the theatre. As an arts enthusiast, he steals money to travel to New York and surround himself in riches, thus fulfilling his “morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers” (Cather 239). But Paul’s path of destruction soon catches up with him when he learns that his father has come to bring him home. The “sickening vividness,” (Cather 247) of returning to the “tepid waters of Cordelia Street,” (Cather 247) was decidedly not an option for him. He succumbs to his reflections of the life he loathed: “It was the old depression exaggerated; all the whole world had become Cordelia Street” (Cather 284). Like Susan, Paul’s isolation proves to bring him a new world of happiness until he is threatened with the possibility of returning home to Pittsburgh.
Through this analysis of both stories, I have suggested that Susan and Paul’s social isolation liberates them from their despair. Although each story is distinct as addressed by their social circumstances, Susan and Paul’s isolation from the world provides them each with the opportunity to find happiness. Albeit, it is a short-lived sense of freedom as both of their pasts return to their current realities, thereby resulting in their subsequent suicides.