re a flower. He describes his neighbourhood, the people he despises to be, “prosy men who never wore frock coats, or violets in their buttonholes.” He would dream about, “the flowers he sent”, to members of the stock company who were his “acquaintances.” Paul wants to be as the flowers, living to all of their extent, saturating in the beauty of life. While Paul was in New York City one of the first things he did was “[ring] for the bell boy [to send] him down flowers.” He was living out his dreams. He was pleased with his surroundings and his style of living during his days in New York and expressed his “dearest pleasure [was] . . . his enjoyment of his flowers”, and goes on to say that he couldn’t remember a time of such bliss. He loved all forms of creative expression and was intrigued by “whole flower gardens blooming behind glass windows, against which the snowflakes stuck and melted; violets, roses, carnations, lilies of the valley-somehow vastly more lovely and alluring that they blossomed thus unnaturally in the snow.” The flowers induce a happiness in Paul at the time of his greatest revolution. During the last days of his stay in New York, Paul feels that his status is becoming dead and useless as his money runs out. He begins to die inside as with his authority shown by the violets he wears in his buttonhole. Paul expresses the symbolism between his life and the flowers:The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, he noticed;all their red glory over. It occurred to him that all the flowers he hadseen in the snow windows that first night must have gone the sameway, long before this. It was only one splendid breath they had, inspite of their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass. It was alosing game in the end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies bywhich the world is run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully fromhis ...
