There are two prominent readings of Cather’s story: one from the perspective of Cather’s personal life, and another from a broader social-sexual lens.

Beginning with some biographical details about Cather’s life is necessary to the first analysis. Cather was born in Virginia in 1873, where her family remained for the first decade of her life. At age nine, her family moved to Nebraska, where they tried and failed at farming before moving into real estate. Her time in Nebraska was formative. She read many books from her neighbors’ vast library and began writing. A precocious student, Cather graduated at age 16 from the University of Nebraska.

After college, she was hired at a women’s magazine in Pittsburgh, where she wrote in a variety of genres: short story, journalism, and poetry. This included the obviously autobiographical story, “Tommy, the Unsentimental,” about a masculine girl from Nebraska who saves her father’s struggling business. During this period in Pittsburgh, she taught high school English and Latin. Some of her early short stories written during this time, like “Paul’s Case,” were collated and published in a book called The Troll Garden. The collection was published in 1905. A year later, in 1906, Cather moved to New York City.