Cathedral: An Analysis
Cathedral is one of the most popular stories in modern times, and it is told by a man whose wife has just welcomed an old friend to their home (Hovland and Brit 625-638). His wife's blind neighbor, a widower, was going to spend the night at their house. However, the narrator of the story expresses his displeasure with the visitor, especially his blindness. The man reveals that his wife encountered the blind man in Sidney while working as a reader to the blind for him in Seattle. However, it would be important to know that one day, the wife admits that the blind friend wrote a poem after touching her face.
Themes
The difference between looking and seeing
The story brings out the theme of seeing and relates it to looking; this is due to the fact that according to the story, the act of looking is related to physical seeing, however, it would be important to note that it requires a deeper engagement important it was for him to draw the cathedral, he knows deep inside that it was one of the most (Caballero and Rosario). The narrator explains in the story that he is able to look rather than see and understand things deeply. He looks at his wife and Robert when they arrive, and due to the fact that he is not blind, he assumes that he is more superior to Robert. The narrator assumes that by the virtue of being blind, Robert cannot have a normal life or even please a woman. Robert is of the people that assume that by the virtue of being able to see, he knows everything and puts no effort to understand deeper things about other people and that is why he does not know his wife very well. Robert on the other hand according to the story analyses everything and takes time to listen to the wife of the narrator. And even though he cannot see the wife of the narrator physically, she knows and understand her deeply due to the fact that he takes his time to know her deeply and has the ability to see on a much deeper level than even the narrator due to the fact that he truly listens. The wife perfectly understands all about the blind man; this has been made possible by the fact that they have been communicating though audio tapes in the past ten years. The only interaction that the narrator has had with his wife is just seeing each other and their relationship has no intimacy, there are exchanges where the narrator does a little more to annoy her. Robert explains that the aspect of seeing involves a lot more than the physical looking.
Art as an insight
The characters in the story have found the meaning of their experience in life through things such as poetry, drawings and even storytelling. According to the story, the wife writes poems at the end of every year, these poems explains the experiences they have had in their lives. The poems marks some of the most important events in her life including even the time that Robert touched her face (Ning 795-801). Due to the fact that the narrator does not like poems, he admits that he cannot get meaning in the same. The narrator however gains an insight into his own life the time that he draws a picture of a cathedral with Robert. This exposes him to the idea that looking inwardly is the best way to gain a much greater knowledge and a deeper understanding of other people and even himself. Due to the fact that Robert likes to get the insight in a story, he gained an insight of the drawing too. Although he is not likely to get an insight of what the narrator had drawn, Robert gets an insight of his own life and shares the experience of transformation of the narrator. Due to the transformation, the narrator tells his story of epiphany makes a meaning to him as a new found understanding. The narrative is rough and choppy; this is due to the fact that the narrator interrupts himself every time he has to make a defensive comment, he gets the story out and lets people know some other inner things. Although the narrator cannot understand how important it was for him to draw the cathedral, he knows deep inside that it was one of the most important experiences he has ever had.
Conclusion
The narrator of the cathedral draws a cathedral with Robert representing a true insight which is the ability to see beyond the surface and find a true meaning of a phenomenon and individuals. Before the narrator draws the cathedral, he cannot see what Robert cannot do making his world simple. When the narrator is told to describe the cathedral that is on the television, he lacks words to do the same due to the fact that he does not study a situation or phenomenon deeply. However, when he takes time to draw the picture, he is continually drawn into knowing an insight of the story (Sadeq and Ala Eddin and Mohammed Al-Badawi 157-160). When the picture is done, the narrator keeps his eyes shut but he sees greater things that he has ever seen before.
Works Cited
Hovland, Brit Marie. “From a narrative of suffering towards a narrative of growth: Norwegian history textbooks in the inter-war period.” Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 57.6 (2013): 625-638.
Caballero, Rosario. “Language, space and body: Sensing and construing built space through metaphor.” Space, place and the discursive construction of identity (2014).
Ning, Y. A. N. “Fullness out of Minimalism—Interpretation on the Narrative Style of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”.” Sino-US English Teaching 12.10 (2015): 795-801.
Sadeq, Ala Eddin, and Mohammed Al-Badawi. “Epiphanic Awakenings in Raymond Carver’s Cathedral and Alice Walker’s Everyday Use.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 7.3 (2016): 157-160.
