Cathedral was the short story that I chose to do my lead respondent project on. There was no specific reason that I chose this story other than the fact that the title seemed like something I may be interested in reading more in depth about. Once I read through this story the first time I thought that it had a great message, sometimes the sighted are blind.
I connected with this theme because I strive in my daily life to not be short sighted and to look beyond the superficial and try and understand the reasoning behind things. I think that it is important to do this because some of the greatest innovations in human history have come from critical thinking and imaginative thinking. I don't want to find myself stuck in a single track of unimaginative thought for my entire life.
Another part of this story that I really enjoyed was the realness of it. It was true, nitty gritty, non-hollywoodized reality, something Carver is known for. I found this style of writing to be refreshing and intriguing. Due to the minimalist and real nature of the writing, a reader could take this short story in both a superficial manner and a deeper meaning manner, but either way the story was enjoyable. I feel like this is where Carver compares most to Hemingway.
Cathedral was a nice change up from the short stories we had been reading up until that point in class. It brought the stories from way out there, like The Yellow Wallpaper, back down to earth for me.
Travis, I enjoyed this story as well. I thought it had a much more upbeat message than many of the other stories that we read over the semester. The message that the reader takes away from this story is that sometimes you have to close your eyes to see what is in front of you and look past your first perception. Many times we forget to do that and end up making assumptions that we don’t have evidence for. It’s good to break away from that mindset.
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