Break Isolation

Break Isolation

The short story “Cathedral” is written by Raymond Carver. In “Cathedral”, there are three different characters: the narrator, narrator’s wife and the blind man. At first, they isolate with each other. However, at the end of the story, they get together for drawing a Cathedral. Among these three figures, the narrator is the one who experiences an obvious psychological change-from seal himself off in his own narrow world to liberate himself.

The narrator leads a flagging life. Drinks, TV and dope are the main parts of his life. Obviously, he has been trapped by himself in a narrow, sheltered world that nobody can enter or even interact with him. Obviously, if someone stays in his own world for long time, he will become insular and be scared to make any changes in his life. That’s why he holds presumption toward Robert, since Robert is such kind of person the narrator has never seen in his previous life. “Walled in by his own insecurities and prejudices, this narrator is sadly out of touch with his world and with himself, buffered by drink and pet and by the sad reality, as his wife puts it, that he has no friends” (Nesset). His wife’s comment of him proves that the narrator lives in a narrow world. The coming of his wife’s friend makes him lack of security. “I waited in vain to hear my name on my wife's sweet lips” (Carver 443). It implies that he wants himself to be involved into the conversation of his wife’s past between Robert and his wife. Instead of joining their conversation actively, he chooses to rest his hope on others and wait passively. What’s worse, his wife doesn’t want him to join their conversation. It seems that there are both outside and his own factor to trap him in the narrow world. As we all know, conjugal relationship is one of the closet relationship in the world. However, this doesn’t apply to the narrator and his wife. They are more like strangers rather than couple. The narrator’s wife just leaves him alone in his own world rather than help him to open up his mind to face the bigger world. Her emotion toward the narrator is indifferent. As the narrator said, “my wife and I hardly ever went to bed at the same time” (Carver 448). It reflects that they are isolated with each other. His wife’s attitude toward Robert and the narrator is totally different. According to the narrator’s description, “she was still wearing a smile. Just amazing…..My wife took his arm, shut the car door, and, talking all the way, moved him down the drive and then up the steps to the front porch” (Carver 441).  It seems that it is amazing for narrator to see the softer side of his wife. Ironically, his wife show her kindness to other man instead of her husband. It implies the cold relationship between the narrator and his wife. In some way, the attitude of his wife pushes the narrator to stay at his own world.

Not only his wife’s attitude, but also the mental gap from comparing with Robert causes him to hide in his own world. Obviously, the narrator holds hostility to the blind man even before they meet each other, since the narrator has already heard lots of things of Robert from his wife and knows that the characteristics of Robert is totally different from him. Although Robert has some degree of handicap physically, he makes it up by having a more colorful life. He never trapped by his disability, instead he works hard to bring himself out to the world, like running a sales distributorship and even broadcasting ham radio. Unlike the narrator who hides himself in his world and avoids interaction with others, Robert has lots of friends and actively integer himself into society. “Robert is characterized by the strength of his personality, and he serves accordingly as the extra-durable guide needed to pull his host out of his shell” (Nesset). The Psychological change of the narrator starts from drawing a Cathedral with Robert. “The subject of their mutual efforts--the cathedral--as a symbol represents a kind of common humanity and benevolence, and of human patience and fortitude” (Nesset). The humanity of drawing cathedral is implied in what Robert says. “Put some people in there now. What's a cathedral without people?"(Carver 448) “Robert asks the narrator to add a touch of humanity to the drawing” (Nesset). Their common effort on drawing Cathedral gives an opportunity to the narrator to break isolation and experience the feeling of having connection with somebody. Since they draw the cathedral together, they both contribute their patience into it. “The drawing of the cathedral is a "gesture of fraternity" that, like the meal preceding it, establishes solid contact between the men and in turn nudges the narrator temporarily out of his self-contained world” (Howe 43). It is obvious that the most communication between them is non-verbal. However, something does change during their shared non-verbal work. It seems that the relationship between the narrator and Robert has become intimate. It is not only a process of finishing a picture together, it is also a process for the narrator to walk out his world step by step in coordination with the drawing of cathedral.