The changing of perspectives of a primary character is often paramount to a story, and this story is told in a number of different ways. Raymond Carver's “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 an acquaintance of the narrator’s wife. One fateful night, invited over for dinner, the narrator attempts to understand Robert and his way of life, as well as his relationship to his wife. In the process of this, he begins to understand things about himself, life, and Robert that he could not imagine otherwise – this level of understanding is the ‘sight’ that is discussed in the story. Meanwhile, John Cheever's "The Swimmer" tells the sale of an dull but arrogant upper-class man, Neddy Merrill, who slowly but surely descends further into depression and confusion due to the sights and sounds he sees over the course of his journey. While Carver's narrator is enlightened and energized by the things he sees, Neddy Merrill is effectively destroyed.
The narrator in the story goes through a significant character transformation over the course of “Cathedral”. 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 he 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 assumes that his wife left him because she could not stand the thought of loving someone who could not see her: "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" (Carver 1.16). The narrator places a great amount of importance on sight, making it the most crucial value to a person. 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). Neddy Merrill, in a way, is also blind to the horrors of life and the passage of time; in one afternoon months seemingly pass, with his early summer jaunt turning into autumn. In the beginning of the story, he is self-satisfied: "He was not a practical joker nor was he a fool but he was determinedly original and had a vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure" (Cheever 54). This slowly changes over the course of the story, as he starts to doubt himself and his place in the world. Robert in "Cathedral," because he cannot see, relies more on listening and understanding; because he listens to the narrator’s wife, he knows her more intimately than the narrator does. He “sees” her in ways the narrator cannot, as is clear from their truncated, brief interactions. Instead, the narrator’s sense of physical sight comes from the arts – stories and drawing. When it comes time to draw a cathedral, he has the narrator join him, leading the narrator to close his eyes and look within for inspiration to draw the building. Robert instructs the narrator to draw the cathedral while Robert holds the drawing hand; this is how Robert ‘sees.’ In the course of this drawing, the narrator understands more about himself, though he cannot articulate it properly in the story. Neddy Merrill, on the other hand, refuses to recognize the emptiness of time and his own materialistic life; a former lover asks him, "Will you ever grow up?" (Cheever 63). Neddy, unlike Carver's narrator, does not open himself up to the new perspectives presented to him, and when he does he perceives himself as a confused failure. Besides the superficial issues of physical sight and blindness, the narrator’s journey toward true understanding comes from the drawing of said cathedral. Drawing the cathedral is easy for the narrator; however, when it comes time to describe the building on television to Robert, he finds that he cannot. 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: "I stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I even begin to describe it? But say my life depended on it. Say my life was being threatened by an insane guy who said I had to do it or else" (Carver 3.10). Sight can also indicate 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 even says “I guess I’m agnostic or something,” indicating 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. In the case of Neddy Merrill, he fails this test as well, his choice to swim through all the pools in the neighborhood not an attempt to get to know his neighbors better, but to blindly pretend that he has a direction in life: "Why, believing as he did, that all human obduracy was susceptible to common sense, was he unable to turn back? Why was he determined to complete his journey even if it meant putting his life in danger? At what point had this prank, this joke, this piece of horseplay become serious?" (Cheever 60).
“Cathedral” presents sight as something to be embraced. The main journey is the protagonist’s path 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, and 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 (Brown 126).
In conclusion, the characters of "Cathedral" and "The Swimmer" are both broken people who must go through a journey of sorts in order to change their perspectives. 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. On the other hand, Neddy Merrill's journey is destructive, self-confusing, and ultimately damaging to him, as his own blindness to his directionless life is shattered. Instead of the hope that Carver's narrator receives through the new perspective he has, Neddy's swimming excursion instead is a giant waste of time, merely costing him what feels like months of time, eventually limping home to an abandoned house.
Works Cited
Brown, Arthur A. "Raymond Carver and Postmodern Humanism." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 31.2: 125-136. 1990. Print.
Carver, Raymond. "Cathedral." Cathedral. Knopf, 1983. Print.
Cheever, John. "The Swimmer." The Brigadier and the Golf Widow. V. Gollancz, 1965. Print.
