How are the author's main ideas and purpose revealed at the level of sentences and words?

The narrator is fairly objective. The narrator does not endorse Paul's decision to steal in order to live grandly. Nor does the narrator affirm Paul's decision to commit suicide after he realizes that "money was everything." The authorial voice often seems to be talking to the reader, reflecting on what the characters do not realize. For instance, while Paul despises Cordelia Street, it is described as a "perfectly respectable" middle-class neighborhood. Similarly, Paul's starry-eyed response to the world of the arts is directly contrasted to cruder realities: references to a "cracked orchestra" beating out an overture or jerking at a serenade hardly sound sublime, yet Paul's senses are "deliciously, yet delicately fired" nonetheless. Cather's distanced, sparse authorial voice hints at her attitude towards the events she narrates.