Cathedral Notes

Here were my notes on “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver with some possible interpretations about the ending toward the end of this post.

Cathedral was a story about three people, a man, his wife and a blind man. The blind man’s name was Robert; he was in his mid-40s. He recently flew to Connecticut to visit his in-laws after his wife’s death from cancer(?). The officer’s wife originally had worked with the blind man ten years ago in Seattle. Since that time, the blind man and the officer’s wife sent video tapes back and forth to one another detailing what was going on in their lives. Since the man was an officer in the U.S. Airforce, they moved around a lot between different military bases. That did not stop the officer’s wife from sending tapes to the blind man.

The part we did not discuss in class was when the officer and his wife ended up in Sacramento. She attempted to commit suicide by swallowing many pills with gin. It was interesting as her husband was said to be away most of the time but he had just come home just in time and saw her passed out in the bathtub. He then proceeded to call an ambulance.

After this, her husband is not happy about the blind man coming to visit. There was some tension that the officer showed when he found out the wife of the blind man was Beulah. The officer was shocked he was married to what he believed was an African American woman.

When Robert arrives, the officer’s wife cooks dinner for them and they have many drinks. After the meal, his wife goes upstairs to put on her robe. It is during the time, the officer and Robert smoke weed. When the officer’s wife comes downstairs, she also takes a hit. The officer’s wife tells Robert his room and bed was ready; however, Robert was not ready to go to bed yet. Therefore, the wife decided to sit next to the men and asked to be woken up if she fell asleep. They started to watch some late-night TV.

One part that is open to many interpretations is the ending, the last three sentences where he states: “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. It�s really something, I said.”

There are probably many things going at this moment, I did have two possible interpretations. First, throughout the whole story, he did not understand and was afraid of blind people; perhaps just for a moment he wanted to put himself in Robert’s shoes to see what it was like. A second, deeper point is towards the end, the officer’s wife wakes up and asks what is going on, Robert replies to the officer’s wife what they are doing as the officer himself did not respond. Could it be a possibility that the officer kept his eyes shut to obtain some kind of insight as to why his wife and the blind man hit it off so well? Overall, these last few lines can be interpreted in many ways, just my two cents.

Justin.