Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” is a small intimate story, one which effectively revolves around two characters – the narrator, a regular Average Joe, and Robert, a blind man who is a friend of the narrator’s wife. Sklenicka describes the narrator as “a typical bumbling, addictive character with a load of human stains; prejudices blunt-mindedness about his wife’s concerns and needs, a large appetite for food, drink, and marijuana” (372). One of the prejudices he expresses when his wife tells him that Robert’s wife was named Beulah. “Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman. ‘Was his wife a Negro?’ I asked. ‘Are you crazy?’ my wife said. . . ‘What’s wrong with you?’” (Carver 275). The dialogues between the narrator and his wife and the narrator and Robert are very important to understanding the story. The thoughts that go through the narrator’s mind also help us to understand the character of the narrator.
How the Narrator Communicates to the Reader
The short story “Cathedral” has a no-frills setting. There are only three characters in the story and the two men have most of the attention. The three characters are the narrator, his wife and his wife’s friend Robert who has come for a visit. Robert calls the narrator ‘Bub,’ but otherwise the reader has no name for the narrator and the narrator’s wife is not named. The action takes place in an average family’s living room. Only a few hours pass because the action takes place in one evening. One fateful night when Robert was invited over for dinner, the narrator attempts to understand Robert and his way of life, as well as Robert’s relationship to the narrator’s wife. In the process of this, the narrator begins to understand things about life and Robert that he could not imagine otherwise – this level of understanding is the ‘sight’ discussed in the story. There is a discussion of physical sight because of Robert’s blindness and the narrator’s being very uncomfortable with a blind man. “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 272).
The narrator also thinks about some of the issues Robert faces as a blind man. And during this process the narrator has come to see in a much different, possibly more enlightened way as a result. He gains a subtle understanding of the world when he tries to reason out how strange it must be to be blind and to be married to a blind man. Here are some of his thoughts about what Beulah’s life had been like.
And then I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved. A woman whose husband could never read the expression on her face, be it misery or something better. Someone who could wear makeup or not—what difference to him? She could, if she wanted, wear green eye-shadow around one eye, a straight pin in her nostril, yellow slacks, and purple shoes, no matter. (Carver 276)
This passage is interesting and an example of Carver’s writing throughout the story. He uses repetition and short sentences. He is thinking about Robert and Beulah but the passage really seems to be about how the narrator feels about his wife. And also about the narrator feels about the blind man and how things don’t really matter if a person is blind. “I wished my wife hadn’t pooped out. . . She’d turned so that her robe slipped away from her legs, exposing a juicy thigh. I reached to draw her robe back over her, and it was then that I glanced at the blind man. What the hell! I flipped the robe open again.” (Carver 284)
Way of ‘Seeing’: The Narrator versus Robert
We understand from the beginning of the story that Robert is an Average Joe. During the first part of the story we learn about the narrator from the way the conversation he has with his wife. The narrator and his wife have a direct discussion about physical sight. In the beginning, he is somewhat shallow and overly protective of his wife, being slightly wary of the friendship that Robert and his wife share. Due to his sightedness, he assumes that is superior to Robert, looking down on him as someone who does not carry sufficient skills or quality of life. Because Robert is blind the narrator makes a lot of rude comments like “Maybe I could take him bowling” (Carver 275). The narrator places a great amount of importance on sight, making it the most crucial value to a person, and maybe even equating it with a person’s manhood. As a result, he does not often use his other faculties and relies on superficiality, making him blind in a sense to the real natures of people (including his wife). There are no direct descriptions of the narrator. This indirect way of storytelling is something Carver does very well. The story is more interesting that way and the reader has a chance to figure some things out by themselves. We get to know the narrator by what he says and how his wife reacts.
Robert, because he cannot see, relies more on listening and understanding. The wife had met the blind man because she had worked for him reading out loud. “She read stuff to him, case studies, reports, that sort of thing” (Carver 272). Because Robert listens to the narrator’s wife, he knows her more intimately than the narrator does. “They’d become good friends . . . On the last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose—even her neck! . . . She even tried to write a poem about it” (Carver 275). He ‘sees’ her in ways the narrator cannot, as is clear from the married couples’ truncated, brief interactions. Interestingly when Carver wrote this story he had been separated from his first wife and was living with a woman he loved, the poet Tess Gallagher. (Sklenicka 426) Also he had written and published poems during his writing career. (Sklenicka 125) So when the wife tried to write a poem about her feelings when Robert touched her face and neck; the feelings may have been strong and very difficult to express.
Describing the Cathedral
Unlike Robert, the narrator’s sense of physical sight is something he simply takes for granted; he does not appreciate it very much. But then when Robert asks him to describe what the cathedral on the television program looks like the narrator is stumped. “I stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I even begin to describe it?” (Carver 285) So Robert has an idea “Why don’t you find us some heavy paper? and a pen. We’ll do something. We’ll draw one together” (Carver 286). The blind man instructs the narrator to draw the cathedral while Robert holds the drawing hand; this is how Robert hopes to ‘see’ the cathedral. In the course of this drawing, the narrator understands more about himself, though he cannot articulate it properly in the story. “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything. ‘It’s really something,’ I said” (Carver 288). The clue that something has changed within the narrator is when we learn that he didn’t feel like anything inside. All during the rest of the story he wanted to show that he was in control or that he wanted to be in control. This type of feeling (‘I didn’t feel like I was inside anything’) seemed totally different for him from the reader’s point of view.
Besides the superficial issues of physical sight and blindness, the narrator’s journey towards understanding comes from the physical act of drawing the cathedral with Robert. Drawing the cathedral is not easy for the narrator; however, when it comes time to describe the building on television to Robert, he finds that he cannot. Robert’s idea of drawing together seems to be the only solution. While one may think it is because the sight strikes awe in him, the truth is that he is disaffected by its beauty, since he is only looking at it and not seeing it. Sight can also indicate the degree of his belief; the cynical, superficial personality of the narrator may well be a secular one, and his inability to describe the cathedral indicates his distance from religion. The narrator says “I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything. Sometimes it’s hard. You know what I’m saying?” (Carver 286) So this statement seems to indicate his blindness to faith and God. When it comes time to really delve into the details of the cathedral in order to draw it for Robert however that is when the narrator starts to comprehend what he is going through.
Conclusion
Rhetoric is a strategy that helps a person becomes a better persuasive writer writing helps a person observe what is around them, explore their own feelings about a situation, and learn something both about what is being read and about themselves. Communicating your thoughts and opinion on a subject may be because you want to persuade you readers or explain your point of view “Writing enables you . . . to record and analyze what you see and read” (Prentice, 2011, 19).
Using rhetorical analysis on this story helps a person understand that the story is the kind that can make a person think. In the Introduction to a collection of his short stories titled Where I’m Calling From: Selected Stories Carver wrote about what he wanted his readers to experience. Carver wanted his readers understand life just a little bit better after they read his stories. Make it a part of the reader’s own experience. . . Forever, the writer hopes. Forever” (Carver xiii). ‘Cathedral’ does exactly what Carver wanted to happen. The narrator is so rude to his wife about having a blind man sleep in the house but by the end of the story he is holding Robert’s hand in order to draw a cathedral. This is a startling change of events and one a reader remembers.
In conclusion, because the use of sight is subtly handled, on an individual, human scale, it can be argued that Raymond Carver skillfully utilizes the theme of sight in his short story “Cathedral.” The narrator in “Cathedral” learns about other people just as much as himself through his interactions with Robert; he realizes that he does not know his wife as well as he should, and that Robert is a much more well-equipped man under the surface than he. What’s more, the ambiguity of the possibility of change within the narrator’s character lends it more towards a relatable, hopeful response. In short, Carver uses these discoveries about sight to inspire rather than warn, and as such it has a much more constructive effect on the audience.
“Cathedral” presents sight as something to be embraced. The main journey is the protagonist’s steps towards experiencing true sight – he was blind to his wife, blind to faith, and blind to the positive qualities of others, until Robert came along and showed him just how important and transcendental things were under the surface. Carver’s use of sight is meant to enlighten and uplift the audience. The narrator and Robert share a very intimate connection, although the initial conflict is subtle; Robert is merely pitied by the narrator as opposed to outright rejected. What’s more, the end of the story sees a greater understanding between them; instead of the narrator being punished for his hubris, the blind character helps him to see what he needs to see - which is the glory of life that lives beneath the surface of sight. With their joining of hands to make the cathedral, they become a close fraternal partnership, understanding one another more closely. In this way, the theme of sight is elegantly worked into the main theme, and the narrator actually grows as a result.
Works Cited
Carver, Raymond. Where I’m calling from: New and selected short stories. New York City: Atlantic Monthly Press.1988.
Carver, Raymond. ‘Cathedral’ Where I’m calling from: New and selected short stories. New York City: Atlantic Monthly Press.1988. pp. 272-291.
Reid, Stephen. The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers. 9th Ed. Longman 2011. Instructors/coursesmart.com/9780205801152/16
Sklenicka, Carol. Carver: A Writer’s Life. New York City: Scribner. 2009.
