The mood of “Paul’s Case” is rather bleak, as it touches on themes of disillusionment with modern society. Paul longs for other places because his current prospects are grim and uninspiring. Unfortunately, he seems unable to escape his surroundings for longer than a few short hours or days at a time. Paul’s despair and the seeming hopelessness of his case establish this grim mood for the duration of the story, with only small moments of hope interspersed.
This mood is born not only from Paul's disillusionment but from his feelings of difference and alienation. Paul views himself as special—a dreamer; an artistic and inspired mind. Every time Cather pulls the reader away from Paul's romanticized dream state, the cold world around him appears dreary by comparison. What, after all, is Cordelia Street when compared to the opera? One can observe this mood shift clearly when Paul "comes down" from the high of being at a musical performance:
What he wanted was to see, to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be carried out, blue league after blue league, away from everything. After a night behind the scenes, Paul found the school-room more than ever repulsive; the bare floors and naked walls.
In this scene, the mood drastically shifts from one sentence to the next. In the first sentence, Paul imagines himself out on a beautifully blue ocean wave, symbolizing the atmosphere of music and art he so loves. This introspective mood from Paul's dream state is cut short by the intrusion of the schoolroom—the dreary, repulsive atmosphere of which swiftly dampens Paul's mood (and, in turn, the reader's mood).
