Empoword

Part Two: Text Wrestling 227 (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