Model Text: “Christ Like”

Christ Like^[1]

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”, the character Robert plays a Christ-like role. To mirror that, the narrator plays the role of Saul, a man who despised and attacked Christ and his followers until he became converted. Throughout the story there are multiple instances where Robert does things similar to miracles performed in biblical stories, and the narrator continues to doubt and judge him. Despite Robert making efforts to converse with the narrator, he refuses to look past the oddity of his blindness. The author also pays close attention to eyes and blindness. To quote the Bible, “Having eyes, see ye not?” (King James Bible, Mark, 8.18). The characters who have sight don’t see as much as Robert, and he is able to open their eyes and hearts.

When Robert is first brought up, it is as a story. The narrator has heard of him and how wonderful he is, but has strong doubts about the legitimacy of it all. He shares a specific instance in which Robert asked to touch his wife’s face. He says, “She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose—even her neck!”, and goes on to talk about how she tried to write a poem about it (Carver 34). The experience mentioned resembled the story of Jesus healing a blind man by putting his hands on his eyes and how, afterward, the man was restored (Mark 8.21-26). While sharing the story, however, the only thing the narrator cares about is that the blind man touched his wife’s neck. At this point in the story the narrator still only cares about what’s right in front of him, so hearing retellings means nothing to him.

When Saul is introduced in the Bible, it is as a man who spent his time persecuting the followers of Christ and “made havoc of the church” (Acts 8.3-5). From the very beginning of the story, the narrator makes it known that, “A blind man in my house was not something that I looked forward to” (Carver 34). He can’t stand the idea of something he’d only seen in movies and heard tell of becoming something real. Even when talking about his own wife, he disregards the poem she wrote for him. When he hears the name of Robert’s deceased wife, his first response is to point out how strange it sounds (Carver 36). He despises Robert, so he takes out his aggression on the people who don’t, and drives them away.

The narrator’s wife drives to the train station to pick up Robert while he stays home and waits, blaming Robert for his boredom. When they finally do arrive, the first thing he notices about Robert is his beard. It might be a stretch to call this a biblical parallel since a lot of people have beards, but Carver makes a big deal out of this detail. The next thing the narrator points out, though, is that his wife “had this blind man by his coat sleeve” (Carver 37). This draws the parallel to another biblical story. In this story a woman who has been suffering from a disease sees Jesus and says to herself, “If I may but touch his garment I shall be whole” (Matt. 9.21). Before they had gotten in the house the narrator’s wife had Robert by the arm, but even after they were at the front porch, she still wanted to hold onto his sleeve.

The narrator continues to make observations about Robert when he first sees him. One that stood out was when he was talking more about Robert’s physicality, saying he had “stooped shoulders, as if he carried a great weight there” (Carver 38). There are many instances in the Bible where Jesus is depicted carrying some type of heavy burden, like a lost sheep, the sins of the world, and even his own cross. He also points out on multiple occasions that Robert has a big and booming voice, which resembles a lot of depictions of a voice “from on high.”

After they sit and talk for a while, they have dinner. This dinner resembles the last supper, especially when the narrator says, “We ate like there was no tomorrow” (Carver 39). He also describes how Robert eats and says “he’d tear of a hunk of buttered bread and eat that. He’d follow this up with a big drink of milk” (Carver 39). Those aren’t the only things he ate, but the order in which he ate the bread and took a drink is the same order as the sacrament, a ritual created at the last supper. The author writing it in that order, despite it being irrelevant to the story, is another parallel that seems oddly specific in an otherwise normal sequence of events. What happens after the dinner follows the progression of the Bible as well.

After they’ve eaten a meal like it was their last the narrator’s wife falls asleep like Jesus’ apostles outside the garden of Gethsemane. In the Bible, the garden of Gethsemane is where Jesus goes after creating the sacrament and takes on the sins of all the world. He tells his apostles to keep watch outside the garden, but they fall asleep and leave him to be captured by the non-believers (Matt. 26.36-40). In “Cathedral,” Robert is left high and alone with the narrator when the woman who holds him in such high regard falls asleep. Instead of being taken prisoner, however, Robert turns the tables and puts all focus on the narrator. His talking to the narrator is like a metaphorical taking on of his sins. On page 46 the narrator tries to explain to him what a cathedral looks like. It turns out to be of no use, since the narrator has never talked to a blind person before, much like a person trying to pray who never has before. Robert decides he needs to place his hands on the narrator like he did to his wife on the first page.

When Saul becomes converted, it is when Jesus speaks to him as a voice “from on high.” As soon as the narrator begins drawing with Robert (a man who is high), his eyes open up. When Jesus speaks to Saul, he can no longer see. During the drawing of the cathedral, Robert asks the narrator to close his eyes. Even when Robert tells him he can open his eyes, the narrator decides to keep them closed. He went from thinking Robert coming over was a stupid idea to being a full believer in him. He says, “I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldn’t stop” (Carver 45). Even with all the harsh things the narrator said about Robert, being touched by him made his heart open up. Carver ends the story after the cathedral has been drawn and has the narrator say, “It’s really something” (Carver 46).

Robert acts as a miracle worker, not only to the narrator’s wife, but to him as well. Despite the difficult personality, the narrator can’t help but be converted. He says how resistant he is to have him over, and tries to avoid any conversation with him. He pokes fun at little details about him, disregards peoples’ love for him, but still can’t help being converted by him. Robert’s booming voice carries power over the narrator, but his soft touch is what finally makes him see.

Works Cited

Carver, Raymond. “Cathedral.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Portable 12th edition, edited by Kelly J. Mays, Norton, 2017, pp. 33-46.

The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1978.

Teacher Takeaways “This author has put together a convincing and well-informed essay; a reader who lacks the same religious knowledge (like me) would enjoy this essay because it illuminates something they didn’t already realize about ‘Cathedral.’ The author has selected strong evidence from both the short story and the Bible. I would advise the student to work on structure, perhaps starting off by drafting topic-transition sentences for the beginning of each paragraph. I would also encourage them to work on sentence-level fluff. For example, ‘Throughout the story there are multiple instances where Robert does things similar to miracles performed in biblical stories’ could easily be reduced to ‘Robert’s actions in the story are reminiscent of Biblical miracles.’ It’s easiest to catch this kind of fluff when you read your draft out loud.”– Professor Wilhjelm