Porscha March

Professor Lagos
Experiences in Literature
7 April 2014
When thinking of literature, often times readers get the idea that most authors, writers,
and poets, use a very intricate style of writing in order to express their overall messages. As
readers, it may seem frustrating when unable to understand what the author is saying at first
glance; however the breakdown of the text can lead to insightful discoveries in alignment to the
overall message. Some authors like Raymond Carver use a very distinct style of writing to get
through to their readers known as minimalism. Minimalism can be defined as extreme
sparseness and simplicity; simplicity in style in literature by using very few simple elements to
maximize the effect. Carver uses this very simple approach known as minimalism in his works
Cathedral and What We Talk about When We Talk about Love to convey complex
messages.
Carvers works are usually centered on very typical and ordinary everyday problems of
life. His simplistic writings allow for his readers to relate and want to dig deeper into their own
lives only if they are able to read between the fine lines presented in his writings. Carvers two
short stories Cathedral and What We Talk about When We Talk about Love may seem
meaningless by the end but actually have deeper connotations that are structured throughout the
story. Taking a look into minimalism and the structure of it, helps readers understand Carvers
overall messages. In the beginning of Cathedral, the narrator seems to feel uneasy about the
fact that a blind man, whom is the friend of his wife, is coming to stay with them. Right in the
beginning he says, I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being
blind bothered me (Carver). In minimalism the less that is said, the better and the more
straightforward it will be (Clark 109). From the narrators opinion, it seems as though he is being
very close minded in reference to a blind man staying at his home, but there must be a reason for
this. This style of writing thrives on simplicity, but yet the simpler it is, the deeper the meanings
will be. The blind man, whose name is Robert had a deep friendship with the narrators wife,
something that the narrator and wife lacked. We see evidence that Robert had a good friendship
with the wife, She hadn't seen him since she worked for him one summer in Seattle ten years
ago. But she and the blind man had kept in touch. They made tapes and mailed them back and
forth (Carver). The reason for this narrators uneasiness is never clarified in the story, and is
more so hidden behind a more subtle approach; however, it is apparent that he felt this way
because of his own insecurities and jealousy. Another factor to consider in minimalistic writings
is that these stories are usually told in first person, coming from an I point of view. A story
with first person usually means that the narrator will come to a sudden realization and will go
through a transformation emotionally (Clark 108).
Minimalism writings are expected to use understatements and epiphanies to depict the
overall message. For this reason, it is important for the readers to pay attention to what is not
being said versus what is being said. It is vital to read between the lines in Carvers works, in
Cathedral, what is the symbolic meaning of the blind man Robert and the narrators unsettling
feeling about him? A blind person cannot see, and the narrator did not like that about him, but
what is really being said here is that the narrator is not being open minded and in return is not
able to see some problematic aspects of himself. Most of what Carvers characters yearn for goes
beyond knowledge; his characters want to make a connection with themselves (Clark 113).
Carvers goal is for his characters to find their deep self and learn about themselves throughout
the process. Towards the end of the story, Robert persuades the narrator to describe to him what
a cathedral is. The narrator tries his best to describe a cathedral:
"To begin with, they're very tall." I was looking around the room for clues. "They reach
way up. Up and up. Toward the sky. They're so big, some of them, they have to have these
supports. To help hold them up, so to speak. These supports are called buttresses. They remind
me of viaducts, for some reason. But maybe you don't know viaducts, either? Sometimes the
cathedrals have devils and such carved into the front. Sometimes lords and ladies. Don't ask me
why this is, "I said (Carver).
Now it becomes apparent that there is a connection between the cathedral, Robert, and the
narrator. Going to back to the idea that the narrator is close minded, the cathedral supports these
claims. The narrator in this story is experiencing limited sensory (unable to use his eyes
figuratively speaking like Robert) which leads him to confined parameters (Clark 112). The
cathedral represents the human mind, saying how a cathedral is big is parallel to our mind and
how our minds our huge and have great power. Saying that cathedrals can either have lords and
ladies or devils on the front are also a representation of the notion that our mind can either be our
worst enemy or our best friend depending on how we choose to use it. Carver chooses to keep
the narrator emotionally close to his actions but still distant to what he is really doing (Clark
108). He does not use transition words between sentences but is still able to have a continuous
rhythm (Just 305). The reasoning for this type of styling is to allow the audience to make their
own conclusion shown here: I did it. I closed them just like he said. "Are they closed?" he said.
"Don't fudge. "They're closed," I said. "Keep them that way," he said. He said, "Don't stop now.
Draw."
At the very end so then Robert asked him to draw a cathedral while his hand lies on top
following the same traces of the narrators. At the end of the story the narrator states; So we kept
on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else
in my life up to now (Carver). Carver uses this very simple tactic of writing as an emotional
buffer (Clark 114). Clark claims that Carver hides the narrators emotion by making him sound
more clear cut and precise (Clark 108). Little does the narrator and or readers know is that, the
narrator has been making an emotional transformation this whole time. Minimalism can include
epiphanies; it emphasizes the importance of what the characters experience yet the narrator will
fail to mention these occurrences throughout the story and refrain from going into full detail
about it (Clark 110). Notice that in the above quote the narrator fails to explain what he means
by It was nothing else in my life up to now. This statement leaves it open to the reader to
figure out what Carver meant by this.
The last lines of the short story happen to give way to the message that Carver was trying
to send all along. At this point, Robert had asked the narrator to draw a cathedral with his eyes
closed but now Robert wants him to take a look at what he drew:
Then he said, "I think that's it. I think you got it," he said. "Take a look. What do you
think? "But I had my eyes closed. I thought I'd keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it
was something I ought to do. "Well?" he said. "Are you looking?" My eyes were still closed. I
was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything. "It's really something,"
I said (Carver).
At this point the narrator has undergone an emotional transformation without his
awareness. This seems to be the main objective in minimalism, the main character will not
comprehend their experience because it will give way to a more upscale moral and philosophical
lesson that is only supposed to be determined by the reader themselves (Clark 110). Meaning
that the narrator will not go into detail about their own transformation because they have not
noticed it, but the readers on the other hand, will notice this transformation. Characters in
minimalistic stories are unable to understand their own significance of an event in the end (Clark
114). The narrator recalls that when his eyes were closed he did not feel like he was inside
anything although he was actually inside his house; the narrator went from being close minded to
open minded. He sensed that He did not feel like he was inside anything, opposed to before the
emotional transformation when he was close minded or trapped inside. Carvers stories bring
forth truth in which his characters are able to break free only if they are able to recognize their
own issues (Messer 45).
Carvers works seem to focus on the self, since he himself had his own issues that
helped him write his stories. Coming to an understanding of your own individual problems is the
overall message in his stories. Minimalism is a very simple in a sense and the overall underlying
question and message of the story is easy to miss by readers, it is extremely crucial to keep an
open mind while reading minimalistic works. Some may argue that they do not like the style of
minimalism because it may leave them feeling with a sense of uneasiness. Although carver rarely
clarifies the motivations behind his techniques, he reveals the ideal sentence he is looking for in
his writings by remarking that one can find words that can sound so precise that they even
sound flat, but they can still carry, if used right, all the notes (Just 312). Minimalism carries all
the right information needed to convey a message but the reader has to use it to their advantage.
In his article, Daniel Just asks: And last but not least, what can the ungratified wish fulfilments
produced by these texts tell us about the aesthetic codes valorized by our culture? (Just 306).
My answer to this question is that I believe that sometimes people expect too much. They expect
the answers in life to arrive in a pretty little box but it does not work that way. In minimalism
writings, the readers must maintain an open mind and dig deep into the text to get that sense of
fulfilment from the story itself. The conclusion and message of the story will not be put into a
pretty little box at the end, the readers must find it themselves and that is the main objective in
minimalism.