75 pages • 2 hours read
Cathedral
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Symbols & Motifs
Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse
The use and abuse of alcohol appears in nearly every story. For many characters, alcohol becomes the cheapest and most easily accessible form of therapy to cope with their dissatisfying lives. In “Vitamins,” the narrator and wife constantly drink, even before the narrator goes to work. They throw a party for their friends who are also desperate and miserable in an attempt to share momentary cheer by drinking. Myers (“The Compartment”) refers to his ex-wife who became an alcoholic when she grew unhappy in their marriage. In “The Bridle,” Holits handles his own failure and misery by drinking more and more frequently, until he becomes so drunk that he seriously injures himself. The narrator in “Cathedral” deals with his unhappiness and insomnia by drinking and smoking marijuana until he falls asleep.
In some cases, alcoholism destroys the characters’ lives. Wes and Edna’s marriage (“Chef’s House”) was ruined by Wes’s alcohol addiction. Now that Wes is sober, she takes him back. But in the end, he leaves her because he believes that his addiction to alcohol is stronger than their relationship. J.P. and the narrator in “Where I’m Calling From” check into a facility to get sober because both men drove their wives away with their alcoholism. J.P. doesn’t understand why he began to drink, but he found himself drinking even before and during work. Lloyd tries to convince himself and his estranged wife Inez that his drinking is reduced, but he only succeeds in convincing himself that drinking champagne is somehow different from drinking other types of alcohol. Working-class culture often revolves around drinking as entertainment because gathering at the bar is an inexpensive way to socialize after work. These stories explore the way this culture can cause long-term damage.
Trains and Travel
Throughout the collection, Carver explores the dichotomy of the lives of people who are trapped in place, along with those few who manage to escape. At the beginning of the story, Jack and Fran (“Feathers”) dream of many things, including taking a trip to Canada. They visit Bud and Olla, driving far out into the country and finding their lives intriguing even though Bud tells them that the farmhouse requires endless work. But by the end of the story, they both feel stuck in their lives and their marriage after they have a baby. Edna (“Chef’s House”) believes that she can run away with Wes and restart their lives together, but after a few months of happiness by the ocean, Wes decides that he cannot escape his own nature and ends the relationship. Similarly, while Marge (“The Bridle”) feels as if she will never go anywhere, Betty is forced to move from place to place, and yet both feel stagnant in their lives and marriages.
For Myers (“The Compartment”), traveling through Europe for the first time is a disappointment. The train is a place where Myers is surrounded by strangers with whom he cannot communicate. At the beginning of the story, the train and the trip are not an escape as they both take Myers closer and closer to his painful past. But at the end, Myers sheds his baggage and truly escapes, finally able to relax in the uncertainty and anonymity of his unclear destination and a train compartment full of foreigners. In “The Train,” Miss Dent and the older couple spend most of the story waiting for the train to take them away. Just as there is a chance that they might actually speak and connect, the train arrives and becomes a place to escape and become anonymous, as every passenger is preoccupied with their own problems and destination.
Ringing Telephones
The stories in Cathedral deal repeatedly with the themes of connection and disconnection. At the time of the book’s release in 1983, the landline telephone is the most advanced method of communication that is readily available. But the telephone as a method of connection is disembodiment, making the world smaller by carrying voices across great distances while also removing elements of physical connection. Jack (“Feathers”) takes advantage of this disembodiment when he tries to call Bud and hangs up when his wife answers because he forgot her name. For the baker (“A Small, Good Thing”), the telephone gives him anonymity and allows him to dehumanize Ann when he calls to harass her. In the moments that Ann and Howard spend at home before returning to their son’s hospital bedside, the ringing telephone is a lifeline that might bring important news about Scotty’s recovery. But each time the phone rings, it’s the baker who destabilizes that lifeline.
Carlyle’s ringing phone (“Fever”) frequently signals a call from his ex-wife. Although his connection to her supersedes the phone line, he can avoid the pain of hearing her voice when he ignores the telephone. In “Vitamins,” the salesgirls who fail at their jobs avoid having to talk to Patti by taking their telephones off of their hooks, cutting off the easiest means of communication. For the narrator in “Where I’m Calling From,” the ringing phone means that his wife does not answer, whether she refuses to connect or has moved on with her life. And he avoids calling his girlfriend for fear that he will learn bad news about her health. In “Careful,” Lloyd says that he neither has nor wants a telephone in his tiny apartment, representing the way he has cut himself off from his obligations to confront his alcoholism and his failed marriage. The telephone in these stories sometimes brings bad news or pain, but it also symbolizes an intrusion into one’s isolation, whether it is welcome or not.
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By Raymond Carver
