Character Progression in Cathedral Essay

In Raymond Carvers short story Cathedral the narrator is faced with living a few days with someone he considers a stranger. This story is a fine example of how characters can and do change as the story progresses. Sometimes these changes occur through actual feelings, and sometimes they can occur through impairments that the character acquires as the story progresses. It is somewhat unclear in this story as to whether the narrator actually comes to like his blind guest, or if he is just drunk, high, and does not realize what exactly he is doing.

In the beginning, the narrator does not want this blind guest visiting him and his wife. He does not know what this visit will bring about. His wife was married once before and was divorced. she told him about her divorce. She and I began going out, and of course she told her blind man about it. She told him everything, or so it seemed to me (Carver). The narrator shows his concern about the blind man coming to visit several times, for example: She told him everything, or so it seemed to me. Now this same blind man was coming over to sleep in my house, (Carver). The narrator is also concerned because, in his opinion, there is a physical attraction between his wife and the blind man. On her last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her noseeven her neck! (Carver). What was stopping her from divorcing him for that blind man she had known all those years? In the narrators eyes, there is nothing.

As the evening progresses, the narrator becomes more and more comfortable around Robert, his blind guest. I asked him if he wanted another drink, and he said sure. Then I asked if he wanted to smoke some dope with me. I said Id just rolled a number. I hadnt, but I planned to do so in about two shakes (Carver). The reader could interpret this as the narrator becoming more at ease with his guest, but more than likely, he is gradually becoming more impaired from the alcohol. They had a drink before dinner and continue to drink off and on for the remainder of the evening. To add to this effect, all three of the characters smoke dope together for a while. Their reasoning was probably not very clear and the narrator is probably more relaxed with Robert around because he probably didnt remember much of what he knew about Robert.

By the end of the story the narrator actually tries to help Robert visualize what cathedrals look like by drawing one for him and letting him follow his hand as he makes the lines. I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldnt stop. The TV station went off the air. I put down the pen and closed and opened my fingers. The blind man felt around over the paper. He moved the tips of the fingers over the paper, all over what I had drawn, and he noddedHis fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now (Carver). This is the most up-close-and-personal confrontation the narrator has with Robert and the reader could assume that the narrator has taken a liking to Robert. Alternatively, it could be that Robert is still impaired and just does not realize who he is with. Taking into account the narrators statements in the beginning of the story about being uneasy about having a blind male friend of his wife staying the night in their house, one could also assume that the narrator is impaired.

Even though he may be impaired, the narrator in Cathedral completely reversed his feelings towards Robert, a blind man whom his wife has had a correspondence relationship with for many years. The story is unclear as to why the narrator changes the way he does, but the reader can deduce one of two things in the end: he is both drunk and high, or he has actually changed his opinion of living with a blind man. This story leaves that decision to the reader and allows the reader to take away their own image of the change that has occurred.

Works Cited

Carver, Raymond. ""Cathedral"." NDSU - North Dakota State University. 10 Mar. 2009 .