The Great Runaway

In the short story 'The Paul's Case' written by Cather, Paul is shown as a disabled individual who failed to join the society. He thinks he is very different from the society. The fact that he is kind of homosexual and the fact that he doesn't like the poor society that he is living in, makes him even harder to join the society. So the object that Paul is trying to run away from is the society that he is living in. He first tries to run away from society by hiding his real self by lying to other people. Later on he eventually runs away from the society by killing himself. After he realizes that there is no place that he could fit in, he jumps into the train and ends his life by himself. His runaway can be considered successful because, death is always the ultimate form of escape. By sacrificing your life you can get away from everything. That's how suicide works.
Also in the short story 'The Chrysanthemums' written by John Steinbeck, the main character also tries to escape from the situation that she is in. She it a wife of man who is sexist. He doesn't respect what she does and thinks that the work she does is not productive. Furthermore, he isolates her wife from the society. So the wife one day, tries to escape from this situation by having affair with the man who respected herself and her work. However, the result of her escape was failure because that man who respected her wasn't that different from her husband and was actually being kind to her expecting profit. Consequently, this act of escape made her more miserable.