There are many reasons for which a person may find value in reading literature, the most common being for enjoyment or pleasure. There can also be value to a story in an informative sense, as it may take the reader back to an era that seems distant and unfamiliar. Some famous literature is even hundreds of years old, which might make some wonder why a story written so long ago is still around. This question leads into the most important reason for which a person could read literature. All good fiction has one sure thing in common; something that considerably contributes to the story’s sincerity, its immortality, and its significance. This thing is the story’s involvement of the “human condition”, or what makes humans human. The human condition is a very broad term, consisting of several different aspects. These aspects include the natural emotions and feelings that every human experiences, and thus the inclusion of this component in a story is what connects the writer to the story’s characters, and the characters to the reader. Because of this relatable connection between the three, the story could have immense effects upon whoever reads it. It can serve as a “window” for the reader, showing them, through the events and individuals in the story, things about themselves that they’ve never realized and ultimately giving them a better understanding of themselves, and themselves in relation to the world they live in. The intrinsic relationship between the author, the characters, and the reader is what makes the story just as relevant today as it was when it was written, whether it was five years ago or fifty.
One reason that Raymond Carver’s The Cathedral is so worth reading is because it clearly demonstrates the human condition through the internal struggles of one man, making it pertinent, and therefore very insightful, to whoever reads it.
The main character/narrator in The Cathedral, whose name is never mentioned, is going through a process throughout the entire story. He possesses numerous conflicting feelings that are constantly lashing out and receding and exploding inside him again, and yet he tries to disregard those emotions because, ultimately, he’s afraid of what he might learn about himself. I believe that this is the fundamental storyline of The Cathedral, and I believe that everyone can relate to the character’s situation in some way or another. I’ll tell you how each situation affected me as well.
The main character/narrator’s most apparent contradictory feelings are his deliberate arrogance toward this blind man (Robert) that he hardly knows, and his nagging, intuitive feeling of understanding that he keeps trying to beat down. I thought that this action shined through particularly well in this passage form the story:
I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled. I thought I knew that much and that much only about blind people. But this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one. This blind man filled his ashtray and my wife emptied it.[1]
This part of the story made me think about, even though I didn’t even realize it at the time, things that I am subconsciously trying to ignore in my life, things that might make me afraid to really see. But this really opened my eyes to what I could find out if I just learn to look.
Another aspect of the human condition that this story and this character deal with is fear. This man has an explicit comfort zone (he is comfortable with himself, his wife, his house, his ways), and he has an underlying fear of facing a challenge or even facing change. I think he also realizes that this blind man has to face challenges every day of his life, not being able to see, and he feels threatened by that. The “threatened” feeling, along with his defensive attitude against change, is shown plainly by this passage:
This particular bit of the story made me try to think about the last time I really went out on a limb and faced a challenge or did something different, and it made me realize that it has been awhile. It made me want to take more challenges and be more open because you really will see and discover a lot.
Another really evident human and relatable trait in the main character was his relentless cynicism toward everything, probably brought on by his being uncomfortable around the blind man and by the threatened feeling he got from him. This narrator was pessimistic, sardonic, and apathetic. The whole tone that he used to narrate the story was just mocking and cynical; he used short, clipped sentences, and never said more than he had to. Throughout the entire story, up until the very end, this man would also think really snide little remarks to himself about every little thing, like for example, when he sees that the blind man has made his wife laugh, he thinks, “Just amazing.”[3] And when he sees out the window that the blind man has a beard, he says, “This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say.”[4] At another part of the story he says of blind man’s outfit, “Spiffy,”[5] and of his eyes, “Creepy.”[6] What I learned from this particular ingredient to the story was that I really cannot stand people like this. I hated his little remarks, and I feel like I would never want to get to know this person. So I found out a little more about what irritates me by that part.
Now so far this story has touched on the common human dilemmas of conscious arrogance versus understanding, having a strict comfort zone versus facing a challenge, and using cynicism to divert the attention you should be paying to yourself to something else. All of these are situations that I’m sure can be applied to everyone; and therefore there are three solid reasons why a person should read this story, and how they could gain their own personal insight from it.
Another strong reason for which a person should read The Cathedral is because, aside from all the connections that I’ve mentioned, you never know how you personally might relate or react to the story. There could be something in the story that only you would respond to, even if it were only one small detail. If you could possibly gain any type of new comprehension or appreciation from reading a story, then you should read it. No one will point this connection out to you, or make you read or understand it: you must do it yourself.
And so, once again, the importance of reading literature that you can personally relate with cannot be stressed enough because, like I have already stated, it can very possibly help you to find things out about yourself that you have never, and would have never, realized, giving you a better understanding of yourself and of the world you live in; and Raymond Carver’s The Cathedral is a really good example of a piece of literature that can have vast and valuable effects on the reader.