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Adam Walters
English 230
Bruce Jorgensen
November 29, 2007
A Disabled Cathedral
In the short story Cathedral by Raymond Carver the characters have two sorts of disabilities; social, and emotional. These two types of disabilities are shown through the beginning of the story, but are also given a solution through the actions that occur throughout the story. A disability is described by the Marriam-Webster dictionary as,
“1 a: the condition of being disabled b: inability to pursue an occupation because of a physical or mental impairment; also : a program providing financial support to one affected by disability . . . 2: lack of legal qualification to do something3: a disqualification, restriction, or disadvantage”.
With this description in mind one can see that a disability can be more than just a physical “impairment” but can also be a mental condition which stops a person from doing something at an average level. A disability can even be considered as general as a “restriction, or disadvantage”. With this definition of what a disability is, one is able to find that there are social, emotional and physical disabilities are addressed and given a solution to in Cathedral.
One disability that exits in Cathedral is a social disability of the husband. This social disability is that the husband does not want to work in a social setting, he would rather be on his own instead of being near anyone. The husband has a difficult time with
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any social interaction with Robert, the blind man, or even his own wife. He does not show support to his wife or Robert through social ties. The husband would prefer to live single and alone if the option was given to him. This can be seen in a few different places in Cathedral. One instance where the husband would prefer to be alone is when he is first introducing the idea of Robert being blind, his wife helping Robert, and the relationship that Robert and the wife have together. In reference to Robert visiting his house the husband says, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. . . A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (273). Another instance where the husband shows his disability of wanting to be completely alone in life is when the wife brings in a tape from Robert and they listen to a segment from the tape. The husband becomes uncomfortable from when Robert says his name on the tape, “I heard my own name in the mouth of this stranger, this blind man I didn’t even know” (274). The husband and wife then get interrupted and do not go back to the tape, but his opinion about that was “maybe it was just as well. I’d heard all I wanted to” (274). He shows through this that he does not want contact with anyone else or does he want anyone to make contact with him. This social disability is also shown when he is talking to his wife while they are trying to plan out when Robert comes to visit, what they will do. The husband suggests “Maybe I could take him bowling” (274) but the wife does not agree with that idea, and then she says to her husband, “If you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable,” (274) he responds by secretly stating and admitting to his own disability, “I don’t have any blind friends,” but then just to make sure that we are all quite sure of his social disability his
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wife repeats what he says with emphases making sure that everyone knows what one of his disabilities is, “You don’t have any friends” (275). The next scene where the husband shows his disability is after a nice dinner when Robert and the wife start to talk with each other. Instantly the husband again shows his social disability and does not pay attention to what they are saying because that would force him to start paying attention to someone else’s life, he tries to be social and add to the conversation, but “when I thought he was beginning to run down, I got up and turned on the TV” (279). During the middle of a conversation between two people that have been friends for roughly ten years, who are trying to catch up on the old times, the husband decides that he is going to stand up and turn on the television. For him it is a way to separate himself from the conversation going on around him. By turning on the television the conversation to slows down to a grinding halt, letting the husband be alone even though he is sitting with two people that are best friends. This want to be alone is a disability because it separates the husband from everyone around him. He is unable to get any normal social interaction with those around him, which disables him from being able to live a normal social life. In his mind this is not a disability, it is simply how he lives his life; however the desire to be alone constantly is truly a “disadvantage” especially to those that are unfortunate enough to find themselves in a social situation with him, which fits into the definition of a disability.
The social disabilities of the husband does not just stop at wanting to be alone; he also has the social disability of not thinking before he says things, or purposefully saying things that are offensive. This can be considered a disability because it hinders him from
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being able to make any social interactions. An example of this disability is when the husband is first told that Robert would be coming to visit. The husband knows that Robert was blind and needed help to do even some of the smallest things like reading, however the husband offers to his wife, “maybe I could take him bowling” (274). The husband also opens his mouth and is offensive towards others when he finds out that Robert’s deceased wife was named Beulah. The first question out of his mouth was, “Was his wife a Negro?” (275). This statement possibly could be considered a simple questions of wanting to know if Beulah was African American or not, but the use of “Negro” and then also the wife’s response of, “Are you crazy? Have you just flipped or something? What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk?” (275) shows that this was not asked in a tactful manner. When the husband talks to Robert his disability of being unable to think before he speaks only becomes worse. After just meeting Robert, the husband asks, “Did you have a good train ride? Which side of the train did you sit on, by the way?” (276). Again the wife shows that this is not a tactful question to ask by saying, “What a question, which side! What’s it matter which side?” (276). One of the other offensive action that the husband does is not an action of offense, it is instead the lack of action that causes offense. Near the end of the short story the husband draws a cathedral with Robert. The wife wakes up and sees what it is that they are doing and asks, “What are you doing? Tell me, I want to know” (285) but the husband says nothing. Just as offensive as it is to speak, this is an example of how offensive it can be to say nothing. The husband was asked a direct question, but he decides to revert not only to his first social disability of wanting to be left alone, but he also is offensive in not respecting his
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own wife and answering her. This offensive behavior is a social disability because it restricts and disadvantages the husband in his interactions with those around him. Those that are around him do not trust him, and possibly do not want to even interact with him because of his offensive behavior, which makes this problem a social disability.
The wife shows also has a social disability. Her social disability is found in the introduction that the husband gives about her. He describes her life, what she has done, and her marriage to the air force officer. Her disability does not come from the fact that she wants less people in her life; her disability comes from not having enough. The wife and her first husband at the time were moving from air force base to air force base, and finally she had enough,
“One night she got to feeling lonely and cut off from people she kept losing in that moving-around life. She got to feeling she couldn’t go it another step. She went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the medicine chest and washed them down with a bottle of gin. Then she got into a hot bath and passed out” (274).
This happened because the wife was continually moving from one place to another. This constant movement made it so that the wife was unable to have a secure and set social group. From this lack of a social group and the lack of interaction with those that she wanted to interact with, the wife acted out against what was going on by trying to commit suicide.
The wife can be seen to want to keep the social connections and social networks that she gains, which is also her second disability. The desire to want to keep the
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relationships that she has can be seen as a disability because she is unable to allow people to move out of her life. The disability of not letting people leave her life can be seen with the wife’s relationship with Robert. Their relationship was started ten years previous to the story; however she tried during that time to keep the relationship there. Robert and the wife met while she was trying to help Robert live his life. Their relationship was based off of the fact that she would, “read stuff to him” and “help him organize his little office” and through that simple work relationship they “became good friends” (273). Once the wife and Robert became friends, the wife decided that she could to keep that social relationship, even after a year of separation. Even after the wife had “married her childhood sweetheart” and “moved away from
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was able to reenter the social scene, where she was able to meet her second husband. This social disability is also a problem because she is unable to cut ties with her second husband. The husband is not caring or loving to his wife in this story. The husband openly mocks her relationship with Robert, mocks her poetry, and argues with her multiple times throughout Cathedral. This is not a relationship that is based on love because the way that the husband acts is not in a loving fashion. However the wife’s disability stops her from divorcing her second husband because while with her second husband both the first and second social disability that she has can be solved. The first social disability of wanting a concrete social circle to interact with is provided and the second disability of being unable to allow people to leave her social circle is also met.
While social disabilities deal more with the social problems of the characters and how they interact with the world around them, emotional disabilities are problems of the mind that affect the individual. One emotional disability is that the husband considers his offensive behavior, one of his social disabilities, to be laughable. When Robert, the wife and him all sit down to eat dinner he says, “Now let us pray” (278) and watches as Robert bows his head ready to pray. The husband has no intentions of praying. Instead of praying the husband jokingly says, “Pray the phone won’t ring and the food doesn’t get cold,” (278) which is an insult to Robert who has taken the steps to get ready for a real prayer. This could be interpreted as being humorous however that is an offensive move playing around with a guest in that fashion. This is an emotional disability because the husband condones his inappropriate behavior by creating a joke about it. This disability of accepting offensive remarks and actions as socially acceptable is also seen when the
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husband says that he will take Robert out bowling. The husband is being offensive to Robert and his physical disability but accepts it as nothing socially wrong because he said that line as a joke. The husband does have an emotional disability because he mentally does not see the difference between an offensive comment and a joke, but instead only sees humor in what he says that is offensive.
These disabilities are all solved through the arrival and interaction with Robert. The husband’s disability of not wanting to be around other people is fixed with the arrival of Robert. The husband is with Robert, and as much as the husband tries to get Robert to move away socially, Robert persists and forces the husband into a social situation. The wife after a bit of time leaves the living room leaving Robert and the husband together, alone. This is exactly what the husband does not want. This goes against the husband’s disability however Robert through his interaction with the husband is slowly able to get the husband to start talking and even create a relationship with Robert. The first time that Robert and the husband start to hold a conversation and really start to learn about each other is when Robert is asked “What’s your pleasure?” (277) and the husband mixes the drinks that they want. Through getting him a drink, Robert opens up and starts talking about himself, how that he thinks that “When I drink water . . . I drink water. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey” (277). It’s a small act by Robert to break the separation between him and the husband, but it is the beginning of their relationship where the husband starts to learn small little facts about Robert’s personal life. The next time that the husband learns more about Robert’s life and does not reject it or flop out about what he learns is when Robert is asked about if he owns a TV or not. Robert responds, “My
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dear, I have two TVs. I have a color set and a black-and-white thing, and old relic” (279). The husband’s response is the first time that he has had nothing to say, which is an improvement on his normal sarcasm, “I didn’t know what to say to that. I had absolutely nothing to say to that. No opinion” (279). This is the beginning of the husband starting to think and act differently instead of hating being around other people. This can be shown by the next time that the husband and Robert interact because the husband is the one to initiate being friendly. The husband asks Robert “if he wanted to smoke some dope with me” (279). This is the first kind thing that the husband has done the entire short story. The husband continues with these kind acts towards Robert including trying to explain to him what is going on while they watch television, to drawing a cathedral while Robert holds his hand. Through Robert interacting with the husband, the social disability that the husband once had begins to fade away.
The husband’s second disability of being offensive and not thinking about what he is saying to those that are around him, is also cured by the arrival and interaction with Robert. While watching the television Robert begins to ask the husband questions about what is going on, on the television program and how it looks. Instead of being offensive Robert tries his best to answer what a cathedral looks like. The husband is forced to think about what he says and choose his words. At first the husband begins describing them as “very tall” (283) but realizes that with that description it doesn’t help out much. The husband tries again and says, “They reach way up. Up and up. Toward the sky. They’re so big, some of them, they have to have these supports” (283) which is a much more
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meaningful than just saying that cathedrals are “very tall”. This cures the husband of his second disability because he has to help and even work with Robert.
Robert’s arrival also helps out the wife with her disabilities. Her first social disability of needing interaction with others is cured with the simple interaction of eating dinner and talking with Robert. She is able to relax and receive the social contact that she needs which cures her social disability. Not only does she receive the interaction that she wants, but it is interaction with a friend of hers, which solves the second disability of hers, the inability to let go. She is able to get what she wants from her disability with the interaction of Robert. The wife is able to talk with a person that she’s only been able to talk to over tapes and the telephone for over ten years. She is able to strengthen the relationship that she has with Robert, making it strong enough to last yet another ten years.
Robert also cures the husband’s emotional problem of joking about offensive things. Robert doesn’t take offense to the things that the husband says to him. When the husband says, “Which side of the train did you sit on by the way?” Robert doesn’t respond in anger like the wife does, he gives a response “Right side” (276). This teaches the husband that he can not offend Robert, and it makes the husband stop saying offensive things. Instead of being offensive the husband changes the way that he thinks after dealing with Robert for a while and instead tries to hold a conversation with him without being rude.
Cathedral is a short story about disabilities and how they can be overcome, both socially and emotionally. It is through the visit of Robert who is physically disabled, the
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emotionally and socially disabled husband and wife are able to receive help for their problems.
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