Vision as Used in Raymond Carver's Cathedral
A Look at the Use of Style and Theme In a Classic Short Story
In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral,” (from the collection Cathedral, Vintage, ISBN: 0394712811, 1983) a present day man and wife are visited at their home by an old blind man (Robert) whom the wife used to assist. Though apathetic and distant at first, the man eventually opens up to Robert. After the man’s wife falls asleep, he and Robert watch a television show about cathedrals.
Robert says that he doesn’t know what a cathedral looks like, and when the man realizes that he can’t articulate what a cathedral is, Robert suggests that the man draw one while Robert follows the lines with his hand. Throughout the story, Carver uses simple and then colorful detail to contrast the man’s shift in figurative vision with that of Robert’s constant state of literal blindness and/or figurative vision.
The Narrator's First Impression of Robert
Before Robert enters the story, his upcoming visit is described using short, declarative sentences and sparse details that reflect not only the narrator’s disinterest in Robert, but his unwillingness to “see” Robert’s blindness in an understanding way. “He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 209). Though Carver goes on about the portrayal of the blind in movies, he gives merely stock details. The lightness of the imagery reflects back on what the narrator sees and doesn’t see.
Though the man is fully able to see with his eyes, the commentary from his sight is bland. He doesn’t ponder the feel of the beard on Robert’s face or any other sensory details of the beard other than sight. Essentially, the man gives an equal amount of, if not less, information as Robert could, as Robert would be able to experience all other senses except sight when talking of his beard. With the plain declaration of the beard being there and nothing else, the man is unknowingly operating from a hindered position of vision. Though he does go on to describe more of his physical features when properly introduced, his first impression lacks the elements found at later, more accepting/detailed parts of the story.
Dinner
After Robert is settled in a bit at the man and woman’s home, they all sit down to dinner. The man, while not fully “seeing,” starts to show signs of opening up as he goes through the process that Robert eats his food: I watched with admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat. He’d cut two pieces of meat, fork the meat into his mouth, and then go all out for the scalloped potatoes, the beans next, and then he’d tear off a hunk of buttered bread and eat it. He’d follow this up with a big drink of milk. It didn’t seem to bother him to use his fingers once in a while, either. (217)
The Converging of Vision
At the end, the man fully opens his figurative eyes and begins to see things as Robert does. He starts off skeptical, sarcastically saying, “First I drew a box that looked like a house. It could have been the house I lived in. Then I put a roof on it. At either end of the roof, I drew spires. Crazy” (227). He is overlooking the truth behind his statement, however, and though he doesn’t realize it, he has already begun to “see.”
The next bit is where the narrator really goes into detail, with his bullet-like sentences serving to quicken the pace and symbolize his awakening: I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldn’t stop. The TV station went off the air. I put down the pen and closed and opened my fingers. The blind man felt around the paper. He moved the tips of his fingers over the paper, all over what I had drawn, and he nodded. (227)
Just as the colorful language starts to emerge, the television -- an obviously visual object -- becomes irrelevant. Carver’s style isn’t characteristic of intense sensory details, and the differences between the narrator’s state of blindness and state of vision are subtle. However, the differences are there, and with the minimalistic form assisting them, subtle differences are more defined than in a piece of “fatter” fiction.
Implied Depth at the End of the Story
The story ends with the narrator’s eyes completely closed, commenting on the drawing he just made. He cannot see it, and he downplays literal vision in favor of staying in his state of figurative seeing. “But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do” (228). With his eyes closed, he doesn’t ignore Robert, instead opting to tell him “It’s really something” (228). By doing so, he has found his own sense of detail in a state of literal blindness and figurative vision.
Despite the reader not knowing all of the details of what the narrator is envisioning, there is hidden and implied detail within that last statement. The colorful language is still present, proving the man’s shift.
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