The Role of Drugs and Alcohol in Cathedral

As the analyst this week for Cathedral by Raymond Carver, I spent some extra time investigating the characters personalities and the events within the story. Although this story concerns real people from Carver’s past as its characters, it is fascinating to infer the purpose/meaning of each incident in the story. In particular, I found it very surprising when the narrator asks the blind man if he wants to smoke some dope. I became curious about why this is part of the story. As soon as the blind man and the narrator’s wife arrive, drinks are served. The characters all rely on alcohol and marijuana to enjoy themselves and relieve their anxiety. Both elements are vital to the short story because they lead to the successive actions and are the driving force to the events that characterize the narrator, his wife, and the blind man. Marijuana and alcohol affect the minds of the smokers and facilitate their loosening up and understanding of one another.

When the characters sit down for small talk, drinks directly follow. The narrator asks the blind man what kind of drink he would like as a gage of his personality. He chooses whiskey and the narrator says “I knew it” as if he had been able to read the blind man’s mind, when in fact the narrator has a warped perception of the blind man’s actual personality. The characters continue chatting and new rounds of drinks are served as needed. The atmosphere is comfortable between the narrator’s wife and the blind man, but the conversation still seems unnatural and the narrator feels left out. The narrator’s wife is trying too hard to assist the blind man because of his handicap and her hospitality is overbearing.

Later, drugs are introduced to the story and the characters finally open up to one another and connect. Prior to their smoking, we do not witness any eased tensions, rather the characters have awkward conversation. In fact, the narrator says that he wishes him wife would come back downstairs because he does not want to be left alone with a blind man. He then offers the blind man another drink and marijuana. The blind man agrees to try some for his first time. They smoke the joint together and the narrator is impressed because the blind man smokes “like he’d been doing it since he was nine years old.” The narrator finally realizes that the blind man is more like him than he had recognized. Soon after the narrator notices that his wife’s robe has slipped away, but then another turning point occurs when he thinks “What the hell” because the blind man can not see anyway.

The subsequent experiences between the blind man and narrator are possible because of the narrator’s realization that the blind man is a ordinary man who is not a threat to the narrator’s relationship with his wife and because they are high. We discover that the narrator often has terrible dreams, so he stays up late to avoid them. He may disclose this information because he is relaxed from smoking. The biggest event is the conversation that gave the story its name. The narrator and blind man discuss a cathedral. As depicted in many movies, people often find television more entertaining when they are high. Because the narrator is high, he becomes enchanted by a cathedral. The two men discuss it and the blind man wants the narrator to draw it out while holding the blind man’s hands to the pen. As their hands draw out the cathedral, the narrator is totally connected with the blind man and his preconceived notions are destroyed. This activity could also be an effect of the marijuana because feelings are enhanced when people get high. Therefore they may have been able to feel a deeper connection by physically touching. The activity is also influential because the narrator literally sees the world in a new way after experiencing it as a blind man. Throughout the story, the narrator undergoes a transformation from prejudiced and negative to experience and understanding.

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