Presentations Of Reality In Araby And Cathedral

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

In literature, every story attempts to represent reality and interpret reality in some way. James Joyce’s "Araby" is an esoteric short story that describes what a boy believes about life and how his beliefs change over time. In Raymond Carver’s "Cathedral" the narrator discusses a relationship between his wife and a blind man. Each story presents different interpretations of reality and different concepts of the relationship between real life and ideas in similar ways.

In both "Cathedral" and "Araby," the main characters base their interpretations upon visionary perspectives, which sometimes leads to amazement or shock reality. In "Cathedral," the narrator states "My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs" (89). The narrator adapts his understanding of blindness from the movies and bases it on the people he watches. Likewise, in "Araby," the narrator states, "At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me" (265). The narrator forms the idea of the bazaar by thinking of the woman in a lovely way. Then he interprets the bazaar as a place of luxury. In each of these stories, the narrator focuses on one idea that he thinks is the right interpretation of reality.

In addition, the main characters in the two stories have different attitudes toward new experiences. In "Araby," the boy does not have the patience to wait; he is full of excitement and quite enthusiastic to get to the bazaar. He counts the hours for the day to come: "I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and any desire, seemed to me child’s play, ugly monotonous child’s play" (266). The narrator in "Cathedral," however, has a different attitude toward meeting the blind man. He does not want the visit to take place: "A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to" (89). He bases his interpretation on the movies he saw that showed that blind people had limited movement and use seeing-eye dogs to get around.

Finally, the main characters in the two stories experience unforeseen outcomes. In "Araby," the narrator expects to see Middle Eastern people in the bazaar. However, he concludes, "I remarked their English accents and listened vaguely to their conversation" (267). Even the people in the bazaar are British, not Middle Eastern, as he expected. In fact, the results are completely different than he expected. He does not see the girl, and he does not have enough money to buy a gift for her. At the end of the story he reports, "The upper part of the hall was now completely dark. Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger" (267, 268). In "Cathedral," the narrator has a completely different experience than in "Araby." In "Cathedral," the narrator is astonished by the way the blind man eats. He states, "The blind man had right away located his foods, he knew just where everything was on his plate. I watched with admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat" (93). The blind man, therefore, forces the narrator to change his narrow point of view about blind people. The narrator eventually accepts a broader interpretation of blind people than he had at the beginning of the story. At the end of the story, the blind man shocks the narrator with a precise description of a cathedral, which the narrator thought was impossible for a blind person to do. The narrator reports, "My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I did not feel like I was inside anything. It is really something." The narrator thinks that he is going to have a hard time communicating with the blind man. It is actually the narrator who is unable to describe the cathedral to blind man.

The two stories draw a similar conclusion: the more we experience, the keener our interpretation. The two stories are similar yet the outcomes are different. In "Araby," the narrator’s mood changes from excitement to anger. He was optimistic about the bazaar, but when he saw the reality he was quite shocked. In "Cathedral," the narrator experiences a positive and delightful feeling when he finds out the blind man can act and look like a normal person.