Part One. Reading Questions
One. What is the irony of using a blind character in the story as a way of developing one of its major themes? See page 391 where the narrator recounts the blind man burying his wife and how “he had never seen her.” Who’s really blind?
Two. Explain the title. A Cathedral is where miracles happen. The miracle is that a dead man will be resurrected. The dead man is equated with the image of skeletons that occur later in the story during the TV show. Clearly, the narrator is dead and reborn by the story’s end.
Three. How does the narrator reveals himself in the first paragraph? He’s a defensive ignoramus and a man so isolated from the complexity of the human condition that he is a walking corpse. He’s a dead man. Later we find that he’s friendless. His wife says he has no friends. He lives inside himself, a prisoner of his own solipsism, which is fueled in part by fear.
Four. What is foreshadowed in the second paragraph? Robert’s sensitivity, tracing the wife’s face, will be passed on to the narrator at the story’s end.
Five. What is the narrator’s real source of jealousy? Dead people don’t like to see people living life fully. They want everyone to be as dead and miserable as they are. The narrator resents the blind man for living life fully.
Six. What do we know about the narrator’s habits? They’re reductionary. He does the same rituals over and over to close himself from emotion. The TV watching, the fear of silence, the fear of conversation, insomnia, the depression, the smoking dope until he can crash in bed. The blind man represents change, a threat, an interference with his routine. Our routines comfort us, but they also imprison and eventually kill us.
Seven. What is the story’s turning point? Where Robert apologizes for monopolizing the talk with the wife. He shows empathy, something the narrator is lacking. He shows he has this quality, empathy, which evinces Robert’s maturity and gives him the credentials to be trusted as a parent figure for the narrator who is essentially a frightened child. Once that dynamic is established, the miracle can begin.
Eight. What contradiction about maturity do we learn in the story? The adult is relaxed enough to be a child and possess a child’s hunger to learn new things. We see this on page 397 when they’re watching TV. One of life’s contradictions is that we have to be mature enough to be children, to be relaxed enough to let go and let our child explore.
Nine. How do we know the narrator is a scared little kid emotionally? He keeps saying, “I’m not doing so well, am I?” He needs an adult’s approval.
Ten. How does the narrator change at the end of the story? In the beginning he is disaffected. By the end, gets excited, his legs become numb, he’s possessed with a sense of urgency and life purpose. He says at one point, “It was like nothing else in my life up to now.”
Part Two. Disaffected, adjective; Disaffection, noun:
To be disaffected is to be emotionally withdrawn, disengaged with the world, depressed. Disaffection is the condition of having given up on life and in essence being a member of the walking dead.
Part Three. The Causes of Disaffection
1. You lack confidence to engage with others so you withdraw into yourself. Perhaps you were hurt in the past and don’t want to get hurt again, so you avoid people.
2. You get married more for convenience and to shelter you from the world.
3. You become addicted to your routines, which shut out the outside world.
4. You are reflexively hostile to anyone new because they represent a threat to your existence. You hate change.
5. You act like a churlish (grouchy) know-it-all who has all the answers, a person who dismisses everything as a “joke” and “utter nonsense.”
6. You are incapable of listening to others. The only thing you listen to the Cynical Voice constantly grumbling inside your head.
7. You are lethargic in your self-centeredness and numb yourself with various addictions in order to undergo your “slow death.”
8. You teach yourself that there is no hope for change or a better life so you succumb to learned helplessness.
Part Four. Journal Entry
In a paragraph, describe someone you show who has over time become disaffected. (McMahon: talk about the divorced doctor)
Part Five. Related Essay Option #6
The Disaffected In a page, profile someone you know who is disaffected. Then analyze the causes and effects of the disaffected characters in "Cathedral" and "Feathers."
Comments