Wednesday, August 22, 2012

On Introductions and Cathedrals

I couldn't think of a relevant video to "Cathedral", but here is one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, speaking on the shapes of stories.


Seeing as this is my introduction blog for this class, I should probably introduce myself. I am Ryan Collins, and for the rest of the details, come up and say, "Hello." I am both a Political Science major and a Literature major, and I hope to one day put those to work in some manner (don't ask me how, for that changes daily). I am sure you will get some insight into who I am, and how I view the world through these blog posts, thus I shall keep this intro short.

On to "Cathedral". The abruptness of the narrator's approach to telling the story was initially quite off putting. It made me uncomfortable and inattentive. It was as if I was hearing a boring, one-sided conversation that was like a diary written by a very straight forward person. The personality of the narrator begins to peak out when he begins to speak snidely about the blind man, and his wife's first husband (33-34). This is when I became interested. Insecurities in a narrator are always fun to watch unfold, and in this case, it was a major driving factor of the narrator. He was uneasy about many of the situations of his life (his job, his wife's past, the prospect of new people), and his life was, well, it was boring. I enjoyed that he didn't mention the blind man's name, Robert, until he felt sympathetic with him, after discussing the recent passing of Robert's wife  (35); as if it was the first time he was able to connect with him.
The story was simple, and to the point, but the development of the narrator was spectacular. In twelve pages, we view a man so insecure that the thought of interacting with a blind person felt as strange to him as if he were interacting with an alien, transform into a person who allows this same man to be physically close enough to touch him and to give him an experience that is akin to Robert's own. I also enjoyed that the figure they drew was a cathedral, which draws a religious allusion to the story, who's narrator has already said he does not believe in anything. This implies that the experience was analogous to religion, which is often seen as transformative. Carver has taken a deeply insecure man, and has altered his world view to begin making him a better person.

Works Cited:
Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2011. Print.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the Kurt Vonnegut video. He's one of my favorite authors too.

    I can understand how you were initially put off by Carver's language style, but do you think it was important the story? I feel like the sparse language makes the particular words he does use more effective. I also thought it made sense with narrators personality. He wouldn't give us anymore detail than he had too.

    I also enjoyed the development of the narrator. Can you really say for sure he is a better person at the end of the story though? I felt some change happened within him but I don't think we are given enough information to understand it as that profound of a change in the positive direction. Though seeing it though the religious context you mentioned does give the transformation even more value to me. You could probably expand on that into an entire paper.

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