Cathedral

“Cathedral” is one of my very favorite stories. In never ceases to move me. Perhaps this is because the characters are so very human, so very flawed. I think there are many directions we can take this story. We can say that this is a story about that “blind leading the blind, ”the double-meaning of “drawing” together, and what it what it really means to “see.” And what about the cathedral? As we discussed in class, the narrator is spiritless; he doesn’t “believe in anything.” He’s unhappy with his job, his relationship with his wife seems stagnant, and his discomfort with the blind Robert reveals his narrow range of experience and vision.

Why do they draw a cathedral? Is this a symbol of moving beyond oneself or reaching beyond limitations? The narrator’s epiphany seems clear when he says, “It was like nothing else in my life up to now” and “I didn’t feel like I was inside anything.” Has this narrator become the hero in a journey towards spiritual enlightenment? Is this an epiphany that will ultimately challenge his simplistic stereotypes that prevent him from reaching higher heights? In this way his experience reminds me of Sammy’s in “A&P.”

It’s interesting to note that this story, like “Where are you going, where have you been?”, is based on a true story. A blind man came to visit Raymond Carver and his wife, the poet Tess Gallagher. Gallagher had worked for the man whose wife had died and who had come east to visit friends. Gallagher also wrote a story about the event entitled “Rain Flooding Your Campfire.”