Cathedral Analysis In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

Cathedral Analysis

Cathedral Analysis In Raymond Carver’s Cathedral there is a lot of symbolism relating to the narrator’s close mindedness. In this world there are people that are physically impaired, but this does not limit them in connecting with people emotionally. Some people who are not impaired have a tougher time realizing that they are the ones spiritually blind and unable to connect with people. The narrator is a man who is a person who is spiritually blind and does not connect well with people, not even his own wife. This could be related to the machismo way of thinking about men. How is it that a man can live his life for so long and not realize he had been blind the whole time? The story
is about a married couple getting a visit from the wife’s friend. This friend is a physically blind man who ends up opening the eyes of the narrator. The blind man is named Robert, a person the narrator’s wife would work for as a reader. The narrator does not like the visit of this man even though it really means a lot to his wife. He says that the man’s blindness unsettles him and makes him feel uncomfortable. The wife and Robert have kept in touch over the ten years of separation by sending each other audiotapes. The wife would tell Robert everything and could relate to him more than her husband. The narrator does not connect emotionally to his wife or the visitor, so during the visit the wife is the only one who maintains a conversation. This conversation lasts only until she falls asleep. The narrator clumsily tries to describe to the blind man what is on television with good intentions. However he freezes when he realizes he can’t describe a cathedral. The blind man then tells him to draw a cathedral with his eyes closed and he would follow his hand to feel how the cathedral is. Through this experience, the narrator knows that he is home but feels as if he is nowhere. The narrator has an epiphany realizing how closed minded he has been. The narrator can be portrayed as a manly man who assumes that his house is his castle; just like any other machismo man would think.
Since the narrator is very masculine, he is someone who shares his thoughts or feels with anyone. The narrator does not really talk to his wife. She has a relationship with Robert that is connected emotionally through talking and listening to each other since she doesn’t get this from her husband. Being a masculine man, it is human nature for a man to be jealous of another man when they speak to their wife. Now for the narrator having to allow his wife’s friend come to his house and sleep in his home, is torture because to him that feels like a breach to his fortress. As Bullock stated “the narrator displays anxiety and aggression having a blind man in his house”, or any other man that is, stay in his home. (Bullock, np). The narrator is focused a lot on himself that he doesn’t let anybody get close to him or befriend him, as his wife says, “You don 't have any friends, period.” (Carver, 91). The main metaphor of the narrator’s “castle” or “cathedral” is his living room where he spends most of his time doing work and watching television. To him, that place should not be invaded by others that he doesn’t know, like
Robert. Though the narrator’s masculinity makes him distant to people, he also makes a psychological distance between himself and his wife and Robert. Early in the story the narrator clarifies that he does not know the blind man. He is simply a friend of his wife. He makes that clear multiple times as he states “an old friend of my wife’s” or “friend of my wife”. (Carver, 89-90). By stating that he is only his wife’s friend, he is already creating a psychologically barrier between them. Another barrier that seems to disturb the narrator is the blindness of the man. He first refers to him as this blind man as if he is no one that matters to him. Then he later says a blind man. Peterson explains this to be “a distrust of blind people in general” has he keeps stating that his discomfort of the concept of being blind.(Peterson, 168). The blindness is a metaphor for the narrator’s close mindedness. He does not trust what he does not know. This is the main conflict it the story. The story is well written to the point that it “traps the reader within the mind of a closed-off, narrow-minded man as he undergoes [through] a spiritual awakening.” (Peterson, 168). Robert is able to get through the narrator’s narrow mindedness at the end of the story. The narrator is at a lost for words when he tries to describe what a cathedral looks like. This is the beginning of the narrator’s epiphany when Robert tells him to draw the cathedral while he follows his hands. When he tells to the narrator to close his eyes and keep drawing, the narrator is now beginning to realize what he was missing. Robert then tells him to open his eyes to see what they have created, but he keeps them closed as says “its really something”. (Carver, 102). The narrator has fully realized that he has been blind this whole time and now he can truly see the world. The narrator is able to realize the narrow mindedness he has been living in and seems to connect with the blind man, Robert. The masculine man who sets up psychological barriers between himself and other people, now a spiritually opened man who now can be able to connect with people, but most important his wife. Many men who have the machismo way of thinking never really get out of that mindset, but once they have an epiphany like the narrator, the world is clear to them.
Bibliography
Hromulak, Virginia, and Raymond Carver. "Cathedral." The Mercury reader. Boston, Mass.: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2005. 88-101. Print.
Bullock, C. J. (May 01, 1994). From Castle to Cathedral: The Architecture of Masculinity in Raymond Carver 's 'Cathedral '. Journal of Men 's Studies: a Scholarly Journal About Men and Masculinities, 2, 4, 343-51.
Peterson, P. R. (July 01, 2012). Psychological distance in raymond Carver 's cathedral. Explicator, 70, 3, 167-169.