Raymond Carver's "Cathedral"

NOTE: I wrote this a few days ago and just realized yesterday that I had not analyzed the right piece for the assignment, but I figured I might as well put it up.

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To summarize Carver’s “Cathedral” in one sentence, it is a touching minimalistic piece of fiction about a blind man learning to see. Yes, a man depicts a grand church to a man who has never been able to see by drawing it together with their hands clasped as one over the pen; but the real miracle in this story is that this blind man was able to show a sarcastic asshole how to see outside himself and empathize with the people around him.

Right away, it is evident that the narrator is biased and not to be trusted to provide readers with the full picture. In the first three words alone, he makes it clear that he is not fond of “this blind man” Robert, or anyone else for that matter. He talks about people as if they are merely objects of little importance. Throughout the story, he never bothers to name anyone or give them a description. His wife crafted a poem about a touching moment she shared with the blind man describing how he ran his hands over her face to understand what she looked like. The narrator, however, who is blessed with sight, never reveals any details of her physical appearance. He seems to have no concept of love, even talking of her suicide attempt nonchalantly.

The narrator also judges people based on stereotypes that are not always consistent with reality. For instance, before he meets Robert, he assumes that blind people lived the way they were portrayed on television and “moved slowly and never laughed” (par. 1), almost like the walking dead. Robert, however, is full of life—despite the recent death of his wife—and perhaps even more so than the narrator. He jokes around and is friendly with his hosts, eats food like any other person would, and even smokes a joint with such expertise that “it was like he’d been doing it since he was nine years old” (par. 76).  He shows the narrator the light by telling him to close his eyes and draw, and the narrator finally sees what it is like. When Robert tells him to open his eyes again and “take a look” at the drawing they created together, he decides he ought to “keep them [shut] that way for a little longer” (par. 133-4). He has an epiphany, feeling something significant inside himself “like nothing else in my life up to now” yet “didn’t feel like he was inside anything” (par. 131, 135). For the first time in his life,  he is blinded by truth and can finally see.

a short film based on "Cathedral"

Carver's backstory