Raymond Carver: A Minimalist Writer
Many in the literary community consider Raymond Carver, author of the 1981 short story "Cathedral," to be a minimalist. Carver's style is defined in this paragraph. He does not use unnecessarily flowery prose, and when composing, he sticks purely to the truth of the plot. However, through writing in a minimalist style, he is able to break through the fluff and write stories that have substance and leave a lasting impact on the reader.
The Plot of "Cathedral"
Cathedral is a fascinating story. The story's basic plot is that a blind man is coming to visit a man and his wife and the situation makes the man uncomfortable because the wife has maintained a long-distance relationship with the blind man for years through the exchange of cassette taped letters. The blind man's wife just recently passed away and he is on his way to see his in-laws in Connecticut and planned to stop by and visit with the wife on the way. The man is apprehensive of the blind man because he has never associated with anyone blind before and there is also the continuing relationship that the wife and the blind man share that causes the man some bit of discomfort or jealousy. One of the story's main themes is one of vision and insight. Even though the narrator in the story is apprehensive about the blind man's visit because of his lack of sight, he is also curious because he has little experience with the blind and in the end the blind man teaches the narrator what true vision, a looking beyond physical act of being able to see, is really all about.
Carver's Minimalist Style
The first thing which many people say about Carver and his writing style is that it is a minimalist style. This is because his works generally present "precision and austerity" (Clark 105) which is something which minimalist writings often display. Carver was also influenced by Chekhov and Hemingway and thereby often puts "narrow epistemic parameters upon his characters" (Clark 105). Carver is also known as a literary impressionist and combining this with the minimalist style in "Cathedral" is one of the things which makes this short story so memorable to the reader. Somewhat recently, however, Carver's editor, Gordon Lish, was noted to be one of the reasons that a lot of Carver's stories come across in the minimalist style because of his penchant for cutting material out of Carver's stories. With "Cathedral," Clark noted that Carver did not allow Lish such free rein to cut material and therefore "Cathedral" is "presumably more reflective of Carver's true aesthetic" (105). Once again, the reasons for Carver's style have been revealed to be reliant on outside influences.
Themes of Vision and Insight
From this basic understanding of how Carver writes his short stories, we move on to the specifics of "Cathedral" with regard to its theme of vision and insight in the story. In the very beginning of the story we are introduced to the narrator, a man who seems from the outset to be squarely against the upcoming visit of the blind man Robert to his home. He's never had much contact with people with impaired vision and he makes it clear that he has no real desire to begin with Robert. As Carver writes in "Cathedral," the narrator points out "I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me" (1). This passage shows that the narrator, a typical bigoted Carver character (Facknitz 292), was only putting up with the visit of his wife's old blind friend for her sake. He saw no benefit or meaning in this man staying at his house and in this way, we are introduced to the fact that even though the narrator is a sighted person in the physical sense, he lacks any vision beyond that narrow parametric definition. As the story progresses, however, we are shown that not only does Robert possess a unique "vision" even though he has no use of his eyes, but that he is determined to open the eyes of the sighted narrator and share his "vision" with him.
A Unique Approach to Insight
In this story, Robert, the wife's blind friend takes on the task of giving the narrator insight and vision by conversing and explaining things to the narrator in a very unique way. One basic advantage that Robert had over the narrator was that the narrator's wife had filled Robert in on many of the details about her husband long before they met that night. This probably also put the narrator on the defensive because he was already aware that Robert knew more about him than he knew about Robert. When the conversation turns to the cathedrals which were being displayed on the TV the narrator tries valiantly to describe what his eyes are seeing to Robert using words like "They reach way up. Up and up. Toward the sky" to no real avail as his descriptions mean nothing to Robert. Finally, Robert breaks the uncomfortable ramblings of the narrator and asks if he has a piece of heavy paper and a pen and suggests that they collaborate on making a drawing of a cathedral so that Robert can "see" what they look like. The narrator agrees and gathers the materials. The narrator and Robert take a seat on the floor using the coffee table as their drawing board. As the narrator starts to draw he explains what he is drawing to Robert as he traces along with the narrator. The drawing continues until the two have fashioned a cathedral complete with people inside. Then Robert asks the narrator to do something which surprises him at first. He asks the narrator to close his eyes and then continue drawing. The narrator describes the experience of drawing without his eyes as "It was like nothing else in my life up to now" (Carver 13) and when Robert tells him to open his eyes and look at the completed drawing, the narrator keeps them closed and at this point he experiences for himself the "vision" which Robert uses all the time, and without opening his eyes, he tells Robert "It's really something" (Carver 13). With this revelation, the narrator finally comes to realize what true vision is all about.
An Alternative Interpretation
Another more risqué interpretation of what happens between the three characters in this story is offered by Ann Beattie. Beattie remarks that the conflated meaning of the two men sitting together while the wife is seated on the couch has sexual underpinnings in the meaning. Beattie takes the whole ménage-a-trois undertone of the story to a very different conclusion than most would be inclined to do. When Robert says to the narrator "Let's do her" (Beattie 56), Beattie implies that the drawing, the wife, and the two men are in some sort of sexual triste with the "cathedral" reference playing a substantial role as the symbol for the wife's body (the cathedral of the body). When Robert uses the phrase "Me and him are working on it. Press hard" and "Sure. You got it, bub. I can tell. You didn't think you could. But you can, can't you? You're cooking with gas now. You know what I'm saying?", Beattie says that it is obvious what this passage is all about. This writer finds it interesting that Beattie is drawn to this conclusion about the energy displayed which permeates the characters throughout the story.
Vision and Insight in Carver's "Cathedral"
As covered in the preceding essay, "Cathedral" uses the metaphor of blindness to describe the vision and insight of Robert and how he imparts this to the narrator. It is obvious from the beginning that the narrator is a typical Carver character with his bigoted, narrow view of Robert and his condition. However, as the story plays itself out, the narrator is somehow transformed by the teachings of Robert and by his inspiration. The narrator goes from a narrow, close-minded view of the world to one in which his "vision" is truly enhanced and brought to the surface. In addition to this view of Carver's story, it is interesting to this writer to note the amount of alcohol and marijuana which is ingested during the course of the evening as having something to do with the narrator's sudden "vision" and insight.
Works Cited
Beattie, Ann. “On Visitors.” American Scholar, vol. 83, no. 3, Summer 2014, pp. 51-59. EBSCOhost, Accessed May 9, 2017.
Carver, Raymond. “Cathedral.” Giulio Tortello website. www.giuliotortello.it/ebook/cathedral.pdf. Accessed May 9, 2017.
Clark, Robert C. “Keeping the Reader in the House: American Minimalism, Literary Impressionism, and Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 36, no. 1, Fall 2012, pp. 104-118. EBSCOhost, Accessed May 9, 2017.
Facknitz, Mark A.R. “‘The Calm,’ ‘A Small, Good Thing,’ and ‘Cathedral’: Raymond Carver and the Rediscovery of Human Worth.” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 23, no. 3, Summer86, p. 287. EBSCOhost, Accessed May 9, 2017.
