The Meaning of Home Through the Story “Cathedral”

Home can be described very differently depending on who you talk to. Some might say that home is a luxurious spot that promotes safety and growth; a place that offers answers from the ones you have the closest bonds with. Others might see home as an emotional trigger of their unsettled feelings that leads to anxiousness and embarrassment. In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Caver, the husband doesn’t see home as a place of tranquility, rather he thinks of home as a place filled with loneliness and despair. He uses his home as a place to drown in his self pity and strengthen his negative thoughts about the world. The husband in this short story doesn’t see the true value and freedom a home can offer, until he is reminded by an unexpected visitor. One of his wife’s old friend, a blind man, makes the husband see the world in a better light. He offers a whole new perspective on what a home can truly mean, and makes the husband realize that the world isn’t such a bad place overall. Sometimes you have to accomplish the small goofy things in order to see the bigger picture. For the husband in this story, all it takes is for him to lose one of his main senses in order to realize that there is much more to life than what your thoughts tell you.

The husband destroys what his home could actually be. He sits in a pool of negativity and isolates himself from the world. He sees the world as hopeless and filed with inconsiderate people that would never be able to connect with him. The husband only believes in the negative stereotypes about others and doesn’t give a person a chance before he starts to go off about all of their negative traits. This begins to define him and he only sees the world through his negative eyes. This affects his home life and his relationship with his wife. He often makes many assumptions without communicating what he actually means and this causes tension between him and his wife. It begins to also causes a strain in his relationships with others because he often ruins the chance of a good outcome before it can even start. When the wife tells him that they are going to have a visitor from a blind man, he automatically has negative thoughts about this man. The blind man almost acts as if he is apart of an intervention that his wife has been planning. The wife notices the way that her husband acts, and realizes that this blind man will be a good test for him because she knows how much the blind man has positively touched her life.

In the beginning of this short story the husband goes in detail about how his wife often describes her feelings through poems, especially her thoughts about one of her old friends Robert (the blind man). Since the blind man can not see his home, he often feels a different vibe of what home is to him. He sees the world through touch and by listening. Since he sees the world in such a different way, this helps the husband realize what he is missing out on, and that home isn’t always bad. Toward the end of the story when the blind man wants the husband to show him what a cathedral looks like, the husband realizes that this will be pretty hard to explain. He tries his best to use descriptive vocabulary in order to have the blind man get a sense of what a cathedral looks like. When he tries to describe this magnificent piece of art, he realizes he isn’t getting very far, and the blind man offers a new idea. The blind man places his hand on top of the husbands as he draws a cathedral. Robert uses his other senses in order to get a feel of what it looks like. He then has the husband get a feel for what it is like to be blind which impacts him in a way he could never imagine.

Towards the end of the story the blind man tells the husband to close his eyes and he keeps them shut for awhile. “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything.” (Carver 42). By closing his eyes and actually realizing what emptiness feels like, we can assume that he now understands that his home isn’t empty and filled with loneliness. Just by changing your perspective on life you can be more happy and not be so down all the time. Even though he feels empty, you get a sense that he is finally at peace. When he closes his eyes he feels emptiness, but that emptiness is what the blind man experiences everyday. Even though the husband feels empty, the blind man uses that emptiness to accomplish whatever he wants. He is able to move past the bad parts in life and use his life for its full potential, even when he has one of the best senses taken away from him. The words that the husband uses as a shield from the world are actually hurting him and making him blind to a meaningful life. At first, he was very skeptic and timid about the world and the people around him. By keeping his eyes closed he shuts out the negative words and thoughts. He finally realizes that a home can offer many opportunities, and that he in particular is very lucky and often takes that for granted. He is lucky enough to have all five senses, and with that he basically can do anything he sets his mind to. The blind man was good insight for him to see how much he really does have. He realizes that by seeing the world differently, there is a way to connect with others and to find peace within yourself. That even when you feel empty you still can have a home as a place to be yourself and to identify with.

Works Cited

Carver, Raymond. “Cathedral.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. Shorter 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 33-42. Print.

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