Cathedral Raymond Carver（《大教堂》雷蒙德 卡佛）

Cathedral Raymond Carver

大教堂 雷蒙德．卡佛

文章中英文分析

《大教堂》是他最著名的短篇之一。主人公的妻子多年来与一位盲人朋友保持联系。一次，盲人朋友终于要来拜访这对夫妇，妻子兴致勃勃，主人公却非但不激动，反而竭力克制自己毫无理由的敌意和鄙夷。和其他一些故事一样，主人公对生活这种无所谓和厌弃相混合的态度，始终是个没有提示的谜题。除了从卡佛自己的生活经历入手，恐怕很难找到别的解释。《大教堂》结尾，主人公在闭着眼睛和盲人一起画画的过程中，绷紧的神经终于放松下来。不是四两拨千斤，而是花大量篇幅在天平一端放了过多郁闷之后，在另一端放一茶匙淡淡的欢欣意思意思。然而，这便是雷蒙德·卡佛。

Cathedral Summary

"Cathedral" opens with the narrator telling the reader in a conversational tone that a blind friend of his wife's is coming to visit them. The narrator is clearly unhappy about the upcoming visit. He then flashes back to the story of how his wife met the blind man when she worked for him as a reader. At the time, she was engaged to marry an officer in the Air Force. When she tells the blind man goodbye, he asks if he can touch her face. The touch of his fingers on her face is a pivotal moment in her life, something the narrator does not understand.

Although his wife has maintained contact with the blind man for ten years, this will be the first time she has seen him since her marriage, subsequent divorce, and remarriage. Robert, the blind man, has just lost his wife and will be traveling to Connecticut to visit with her family. Along the way he will spend the night at the home of the narrator and his wife. His wife tells the narrator that Robert and his wife, Beulah, were inseparable.

Themes

Alienation and Loneliness

Like the characters in many of Carver's works, the main characters experience, or have experienced, alienation and loneliness. The narrator is unhappy in his work, jealous of his wife, and unconnected to other human beings. In addition to not being connected to others himself, he seems to resent his wife's connections to other people as well. When he speaks of the impending visit by the blind man he states, ''I wasn' t enthusiastic about his visit ... A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.’’ Further, once Robert arrives...

The narrator is not an articulate man; consequently, the narration is filled with gaps that the reader must fill in.

“Cathedral” Plot Summary

The story’s narrator informs the readers that a friend of his wife’s, a man who happens to be blind, is on his way to visit. The narrator is not enthusiastic about the visit because blind people make the narrator uncomfortable, mainly because the narrator has no real experience with the blind.

In addition to his uneasiness with the blind, the narrator is uncomfortable with his wife’s relationship with the blind man. The wife and Robert, the blind man, have maintained a close relationship via tape recordings mailed back and forth, and the narrator finds this unsettling. Despite the narrator’s feelings about the visit, Robert shows up, and the three of them dine together, and Robert and the narrator get to know each other.

Characters

Robert: Robert, the blind man, is a long-time friend of the narrator’s wife. Robert has maintained a close relationship with the narrator’s wife since she worked for him years ago. Since then, they have stayed in touch. Robert works hard to get to know that narrator, too, while he is visiting them, pushing the narrator to talk and interact with him, bringing the narrator out of his shell of closed-off ignorance.

The narrator’s wife also seems to have some internal struggle, mainly due to what is divulged about her past. She was married before and suffered from loneliness. She has attempted suicide in the past, and now she is in a difficult marriage once again. Surely, had the story been told from her perspective, the depths of her internal struggle would be brought further to light.

At the end of “Cathedral,” the narrator has a life-changing moment, or an epiphany, while trying to tell Robert what a cathedral looks like. The narrator, when first trying to explain what the cathedral looks like, struggles for the words. However, upon Robert’s encouragement, loosens up, and draws the cathedral with Robert, guiding his hand with a pencil onto paper.

This is a close personal connection and intimate moment of communication for the narrator, and it impacts him greatly. The narrator is able to connect with Robert, and this is the moment where the narrator can put aside his insecurities and actually interact with someone else. It changes the narrator; he says, “It was like nothing else in my life up to now” (Carver 108).

Throughout Cathedral, the boundaries the narrator has placed on his interaction and communication with others are eroded by Robert’s patient persistence in getting to know him. As a result, the narrator confronts his own insecurities and misconceptions, not just about Robert and the blind, but also about his own ability to interact with others.

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