2

Beyond the slow wash of hopelessness throughout Carver’s fiction, […] are those moments of fortitude and affirmation that surface in Cathedral and provide some positive, even sentimental, texturing that counters the savage attenuation of character, description,

and outlook. 1

While, as the opening quotation shows, the greatest part of Carver’s fiction is considered to have a rather discouraging quality, yet some of his stories spread a more positive light. Especially in his short story-collection Cathedral, Carver’s tendency towards a more positive realism can be regarded - his usually left-alone, isolated and self-absorbed characters experience understanding and empathy. Outstanding examples of this endeavour can be found in the stories “A Small, Good Thing” and “Cathedral”, both taken from the Cathedral collection. Caught in severe personal problems, their respective protagonists experience a character-altering change. The stories’ characters go through a process of complete renewal,

where “[d]espair becomes redemption; the alienated are reconciled.” 2 This type of character

development rarely found in Carver’s fiction is to be dealt with - do the stories in question show contrast or correspondence in the treatment of their characters?

They show considerable similarities: it will be shown that Carver applies fairly identical patterns to depict these characters and their development. Not only the individual character’s design is remarkably similar, but also the preconditions for change, the process of development itself and the result of the particular conversion they undergo. Carver’s disconnected characters become reconciled with their environment and society using fairly the same techniques of character modelling.

The two characters to be dealt with are the baker in “A Small, Good Thing” and the protagonist of “Cathedral”, first-person narrator at the same time, receiving no other name than ‘Bub’ throughout the whole story. To make a comparison easier, each stage of their process of renewal is to be regarded separately, following the chronological course of the stories. Bud and the Baker, protagonists of different stories, yet the same figure.

1 Arthur M. Saltzman, Understanding Raymond Carver. (Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988) p. 15.

2 Ewing Campbell, Raymond Carver: a study of the short fiction. (New York: Twayne, 1992) p. 48.

3

First of all, which are the character traits the two characters share, how does their environment accordingly behave towards them at the starting-point of the stories? Starting with the initial situation, the resemblance of the characters’ features is to be regarded.

Regarding Bud and the baker’s condition at the outset of the stories, their unifying item is that both characters suffer from enormous social and emotional deficits. Their asocial behaviour towards their fellow men at the beginning of the stories leads the reader to frown,

each one can be said to be “badly out of touch with his world.” 3 As a consequence, their

conduct leads to isolation and being rejected. For further comparison the characters are regarded separately in detail.

The baker is introduced right at the beginning of “A Small, Good Thing” - the whole introductory part can said to be dedicated to his description. Through the eyes of Ann Weiss, ordering a birthday cake, we learn about the baker’s look and attitude: an aged man, wearing the typical baker’s dress, showing only the least necessary amount of attention towards his client. His odd behaviour during the conversation with Ann gives us insight into his social abilities. “The baker was not jolly. There were no pleasantries between them, just the

minimum exchange of words, the necessary information.” 4 More than just not being talkative

this very morning, his attitude is rejecting and reserved in general. No connection of a certain human warmth or sympathy can be established between the characters, although Ann repeatedly tries to connect: as she considers the baker’s age, she comes to think that he also must have had children celebrating birthday parties once. “There must be that between them,

she thought. But he was abrupt with her [...] She gave up trying to make friends with him.” 5

Establishing a link of communication fails due to the baker’s unsociable conduct during their first encounter. As Ann is leaving, the reader is left with the impression that this man is fairly out of touch with the way “people behave.” With the story continuing, the portrait of the man with “coarse features” develops into a still more disgusting picture. After the accident had taken place and the “birthday boy” had been taken to hospital in his comatose condition, the Weisses are terrorized several times by “the jarring ring of a telephone with a sinister voice from the other end of the line

encouraging her worst fears with ambiguous words.” 6 Although the couple is unaware of his

3 Kirk Nesset, The Stories of Raymond Carver: a critical study. (Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 1995) p. 65.

4 Raymond Carver, Cathedral. (New York: Vintage Books, 1989) p. 60.

5 Carver, Cathedral, p. 60.

6 Campbell, Raymond Carver: a study of the short fiction, p. 51.

4

true identity, the reader recognizes the terrorizing hang-up caller as the baker. The Weisses are convinced that they deal with an “evil bastard.” The opinion the reader comes to form about the narrator of “Cathedral,” judging by the beginning of the story, is equally critical. “Bub, as Robert calls the narrator, is mean spirited, asocial, and governed by questionable assumptions about the blind and members of ethnic

groups.” 7 Just like the baker, lack of compassion and emotional coldness alienate him from his environment. By commentaries of his wife we learn that he is a lonely person. “You don’t have any friends,” she states. As a result, he depends on his wife to a large extent. Nevertheless the marriage can be said to be distant - even inside his relationship a sense of isolation is found. Nesset observes that “justly perturbed by his insensitivity, his wife does not

give him the reinforcement he craves.” 8 Accordingly, due to his possessive attitude, Bub feels passed over during the conversation his wife and her old friend are having about their past. “I waited in vain to hear my name on my wife’s sweet lips [...] But I heard nothing of the sort.

More talk of Robert.” 9 Besides regarding Robert as an intrusion into his relationship, another reason for Bub’s subliminal hostility toward him “is rooted in part in Robert’s association

with his wife’s past, a past that intimidates him.” 10 Furthermore, apart from his desire to dominate his environment, further negative character traits exemplify his self-centeredness and ignorance. We learn that he is unable to put himself in the position of other people, like Robert’s as a blind person. “His biggest misconception

[is] his confusion that one must literally see to experience life fully.” 11 Thinking about Robert’s marriage and the life he and his wife have been leading together, he reflects on the day of her funeral, thereby revealing his scarce comprehension in a most doubtful judgment. “[A]nd then the blind man had to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the

goddamned woman looked like. It was beyond my understanding.” 12

7 Campbell, Raymond Carver: a study of the short fiction, p. 63.

8 Nesset, The Stories of Raymond Carver: a critical study, p. 65.

9 Carver, Cathedral, p. 218.

10 Nesset, The Stories of Raymond Carver: a critical study, p. 65.

11 Arthur F. Bethea, Technique and sensibility in the fiction and poetry of Raymond Carver. (New York: Routledge, 2001) p. 155.

12 Carver, Cathedral, p. 213.