Prompt: Write an entry focusing on an aspect of storytelling craft or content from Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” pg. 271 (200-400 words)

Response: Raymond Carver’s short story, “Cathedral”, is the epitome of the “short story” as well as a metaphor regarding the plight of artists and writers. The beginning of “Cathedral” draws the audience in by creating a bond between the three characters in the opening line, “The blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night” (pg. 271). This also denotes a sense of distance between the narrator and the blind man, as the narrator explicitly states that the blind man is a friend of his wife’s, deliberately noting that he and the blind man are not friends themselves. This feeling of detachment continues as the narrator continues to give the audience background information about the relationship between his wife and the blind man, going so far as to not name her previous spouse because, “Why should he have a name?” (pg.272). In this stage, the narrator acts as a shell of a writer or artist. He cannot create due to the lack of attachment he has in all facets of his life. This shallow, detached behavior is seen prominently after Robert arrives and the narrator’s wife looks at the narrator, “My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw. I shrugged” (p. 275). The lack of sadness or anger from the narrator suggests that he doesn’t particularly care about how his wife views him. This detachment and indifference to his life and relationships causes the narrator to be unable to create or imagine anything other than what he physically sees on television. It is only until he begins to bond with the blind man that he is able to imagine and create, mainly seen in the climactic ‘Cathedral’ scene on pages 282-284. It is in this scene that we see what Robert’s role is in this short story. Carver alludes to Robert’s importance early on, when the narrator describes his wife’s poetry, “In the poem, she talked about what she had felt at the time, about what went through her mind when the blind man toucher her nose and lips. I can remember I didn’t think much of the poem” (p. 271-272). The blind man seems to represent the ‘touch of inspiration’. When he touched the wife’s face, she was inspired to write a poem about the experience, similar to what happened to the narrator later on in the story. Robert’s hand guiding the narrator’s own marks a significant change in the narrator’s character. He has become attached, inspired to create a work of art. So much so on page 284, the narrator states, “I’m no artist. But I kept drawing just the same”. This line in particular struck me, as I feel it does to most writers/artists. In the moment of creation, most people tend to not focus inherently on quality, but on the action of bringing something to life.

Questions: 1. Why did Carver keep the narrator’s wife in the scene when she was sleeping? What was the significance of having the wife witness the drawing that the narrator and Robert created? 2. On page 282, Robert asks the narrator if he is religious, to which the narrator responds that he isn’t and that cathedrals don’t mean anything special to him. Why was it important to have the narrator and Robert bond over and become inspired by something that initially holds little significance to them?