Best of Week: Cathedral

Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, uses verbal irony as a tool for humor, and foreshadowing to bring a deeper meaning to the short story. 

"But she and the blind man had kept in touch."  Stating the obvious, this is ironic because blind people communicate through touch, due to their inability to read.  Blind people are usually taught to write and read braille.  Carver uses irony as a comic device, possibly making fun of the blind man's disability.  This irony is Carver's way of communicating behind the characters' backs; he's trying to tell us that he is cold toward blind people, and that he feels superior to them, the irony gives him that feeling. 

Later in the story, Robert and the narrarator end up watching television late at night.  Robert listens as a cathedral is described, and needs more detail. Unable to explain, the narrarator gives up.  Robert then proceeds by using the sense of touch to teach the narrarator how to describe a cathedral.  The irony here is Carver's way of telling us that the tables have turned.  The narrarator now has the disability.  He can't see.  

Recognizing irony in Cathedral is important because as learned through Heart of Darkness, irony must be something I "get" in order to understand the Postmodern Era we live in.

An Inconvenient Truth: It Was Only Just a Dream

My life is a dream.  This theory, presented to me by the movie Inception, has rubbed me off the wrong way.   Inception forced me to make the startling connections between what I perceive as dreams and what I perceive as reality.  For example, in both a dream and life I do not remember how it all began.  I do not remember the day I was born just like I can't recall how I entered my dreams.

If this theory is true, then it could either be a major gain, or a major loss.  The output all depends on who's or what's dream I am in, or if I am in any one's dream.  If I am in some thing's dream then all the hard work and good times I have experienced in this thing's dream has a final destination.  That's a major plus.  An author doesn't publish a book for it to sit in their attic.  Books, like this hypothetical situation, are meant to be read and enjoyed by others.  On the flip side, if my life is a dream owned by nobody, then that would straight up suck.  If that were true, then everything that means something to me would truly mean nothing. 

If this theory were not true, it could possibly affect me just as much as it would if it were true.  If it were not true, then just my belief that this could be true would affect my thinking.  If this under-developed theory were proved false by Harvard scientists, my thinking would already have been changed.  In this hypothetical world where my life is a dream, the disproving of the theory by scientists is just another twist in the plot of my life.

This theory bothers me quite simply because there is no way for me to possibly discover whether my life is a dream or not.  Therefore, coming to terms with the theory is very hard.   Coming to terms isn't even the right word.  The only way to deal with this dilemma is forgetting.