Cathedral

A Cathedral

Often in works of fiction the title of the piece can have symbolic significance to the meaning of the plot. When looking at the title of "Cathedral" I immediately wondered if choosing the word Cathedral for the title could possibly allude to some sort of religious meaning. So while reading through the story I decided to pay special attention to anything that could be religiously significant and found both religious imagery and religous discussion throughout the short story. At the end the narrator has some sort of deeply profound experience while drawing the cathedral with the blind man, and because they a drawing a Cathedral, a religious house of worship that seemed to be symbolically tied to the two men’s discussion of religion earlier, it would be safe to assume that this experience for the narrator is also religiously tied.(43-44) However it could still be debated rather or not this experience should be seen a symbolic of some sort of religious or spiritual enlightenment for the narrator (or both men) or should be seen as an experience that can be metaphorically compared to religious enlightenment but is not actually meant to be seen as a religious experience.

Looking at the religious symbolism  it makes me think that there is a religious message behind the story. When the two men were complacently watching TV the first thing on the television were men dressed as devils and skeletons for some unspecified pagant.(40) This is the opposite of what would be considered good and holy in Christianity, just like the actions and beliefs of the narrator so far in the story would be separated from what would be religiously holy.  Just as the author couldn't explain the Cathedral and denied religious beliefs, at the end the two men are able to see the cathedral together, concluding that they were symbolically having a religious experience together. But I’m still not completely convinced that the author intended the message to religious or if religious symbolism is just a metaphor for a not necessarily religious experience and in the end I still see it as being open ended. 

The Day if the dead is a holiday in which people sometimes dress like skeletons in Hispanic countries.  It was never stated  in the story what pageant was taking place.

Works Cited:

     Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10thth ed. New York, London:  W. W. Norton and Company, 2011. 32-44. Print.