It seems logical to start by commenting on the title: This is the way the worlds ends. Anyone that reads a title like this will think that is going to face a dramatic or apocalyptic novel, perhaps with some epic story inserted, perhaps with characters who face the adversities with stoicism. In summary: the reader when reading this title expects to find something similar to Mecansocrit del segon origen by Manuel de Pedrolo, for example.

However, immediately remains clear that the text has a great dose of humor. This breack our expectations as readers. And besides breaking our expectations, if we are experimented readers and with literary knowledge, we will receive a second surprise: James Morrow spins the title out a work by T. S. Eliot called The Hollow Men, which ends as follow:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

This fact open the door to a multiplicity of resources now the author can use playing with our expectations:he can satirize the poem by T. S. Eliot, can do a counterpoint, can complete it, etc. In any case, it will be a strange coincidence that he used as title a verse by T. S. Eliot and there was not any type of connection between one work and another. In this case, the most obvious connection is thematic: they both talk about the war in a form or another.

After the title, the following that finds the reader is the inscription: «For my daughter Kathy». It does not provide us as readers so much information for the moment, but this as any other inscription helps us start knowing the implied author. The section called «Aknowledgements» insists in this process of formation in reader’s mind of the implied author. We can firstly think that this section does not have anything to do with the implied author but with the author itself, we can think that is a kind of objective texts, simply a list of influences. But it’s not true: the author itself makes an election, list who want to list an exclude everyone else: for example, he does not cite T. S. Eliot.

Then reader found the table of contents, where we have to stop because there are some surprising things. The dictionary of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans definite prologue as «Introduction to a work that usually reviews the merits, the value, o also to place it in the middle of a context and some determinate circumstances.» So usually prologue readers to the work itself, not to the story itself or to the plot itself. James Morrow is playing here with conventions about titles and divisions of literary works; if usually we expect some references to the work itself in the prologue, he starts the story and calls «prologue» to this beginning, turning the divisions itself in a part of a literary play. Something similar happens with the «Epilogue» section. He also plays in a similar way with another division used in literature, which is entr’acte, usually located between two acts in literary plays and here located in the middle of a novel, between book one and book two. Also we have to retain the names of this last parts I’ve mentioned, «Those who favor fire» and «For destruction ice is also great».

We have to retain this data in our minds because it is connected with the next thing that a reader receives, also another more information previous to the text itself: a poem by Robert Frost called Fire and ice. This is obviously the first definitive clue the author give us to tell us this is not a dramatic story. It’s a resource for desdramatization. And author uses two verses borrowed from this poem to entitle book one and book two.

Then starts the singular prologue o this curios story, that deals with Nostradamus and the end of the world. The action starts with the description of the main character in this prologue, which is Nostradamus, and then tells us a story about this prophet and his efforts to narrate how the world ends. To do that, the author uses sometime sarcasm (even explicitly the word «sarcasm» is used) or let his characters do; anachronisms, sought protection in the fact that the main character can foresee the future; and also uses very often irony: «My readers expect a full complement of nonsense» my be a good example of how this irony is used. And this example is also connected with the fact that Morrow often, also here, deals with religion and / or superstition.

Also in the prologue the reader can find a lot ob examples of different ways of speaking: direct speech, free direct speech, and free indirect speech are often used. Let’s see some examples:

As an example of direct speech:

‘No,’ I replied, ‘I did not think so’, he confessed.

As an example of free direct speech:

“What?”
“That was a sarcasm. The coming thing. Mirable dictu, what a reversal Bonaparte will suffer once he reaches Moscow!”

When the prologue ends, reader found the book one, entiteled Those Who Favor Fire, whose setting implies contrasted with the Prologue’s one a foreshadow. It deals with nuclear armament and where there are some references to well-known popular artists like George Paxton and references to popular trade marks of big corporations like Honda, used all this as a desdramatization strategy.

Now we know there had been a foreshadow if we observe again the table of contents we see that the next division is again setted in 16th century, while Book one is sitted in 20th century. Nevertheless Book Two is again setted in 20th century so, although there is no continuation in the proposed excerpt, we can say that the author is inserting alternatively narrations setted in 20th and in 16th century.

To sum up, all the strategies adopted by the author permit him to deal with a dramatic theme as is nuclear armament and wars from humor and irony, mixing elements of religion (often satirizing it) and history (by introducing some symbols, for example; by citing some well-known figures like Hitler) and playing with their traditions and with the tradition of literature itself. This mix of elements produces greatly the humorous effect that the author was searching.

Sources

James Morrow. Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [on line] <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Morrow&oldid=205316097>. 2008.
George Paxton. Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [on line] <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Paxton&oldid=221147043>. 2008.
The Hollow Men. Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [on line] <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Hollow_Men&oldid=221142579>. 2008.

However, can not be considered the character of Phuong as an stereotype. The reason is that this character is shown to the reader in a way from the perspective of the narrator, Fowler; the narrator says that Pyle sees Phuong in another different way; the sister of Foung sees her in another different form and other characters with less direct contact with her, for example Granger see her in a different way to all the previous ones. In any case none of the perspectives from which every character see Fuong is discarded totally (perhaps except this last of whom only have a superficial contact with her) because does not remain clear what is the real Phuong just in case something essential and absolutely true exists in an author like Greene.

There were sexual intercourses provoked by the asymmetrical relation of force between the civil person and the members not only of the army that fought by the control of Vietnam, but also the entire team of the combatant powers. According to that Granger says about Phuong: «”Where’d he find her? You got to be careful in this town.” He added gloomily, “Thank God for penicillin.”». Vigot thinks even that she is a prostitute. Who have little direct relationship with Phuong sometimes consider her only a sexual object to serve to the one who have power in one or in another form.

In the same novel denies that Phuong was only that. “She’s got a date every night.”, Fowler tells suddenly to Granger when he insists on harassing Phuong. The sex plays an important role in the relationship between the British journalist and the Vietnamese youngster. But she is not for him only a sexual object, he is in love with her, is a sex-based love, but it is love. There is not a love in a traditional sense: «”Phuong,” (…) which means Phoenix, but nothing nowadays is fabulous and nothing rises from its ashes.», the skeptic behaviour of Fowler is transferred in some way to the area of his affective and sexual relationships. Anyway, the feeling of possession and love for Phuong worries a lot Fowler and does not want to lose her, looks permanently for a stability that knows that he is complicated that he is going to be able to find, and never he will find it if Pyle interferes:

«Hadn’t she been fond of me and hadn’t she left me for Pyle? She had attached lierself to youth and hope and seriousness and now they had failed her more than age and despair.»

In a context of social and political instability as important as is a war, Phuong seems to look for protection and have a relationship with Fowler while she has protection with him. In exchange, Phuong submits Fowler and make all he wants, as the fact that she prepares pipes of opium for him every time he wants, for example, evidences it.

Fowler sees Phuong as somebody to whom of the occidental culture and knowledge in not interesting (except banalities), but does not give this opinion in a negative way, Fowler knows that the view of world of Vietnamese people is different, that’s why he talks of “wonderful ignorance”:

«Phuong on the other hand was wonderfully ignorant: if Hitler had come into the conversation she would have interrupted to ask who he was. The explanation would be made more difficult because she had never met a German or a Pole and had only the vaguest knowledge of European geography, though about Princess Margaret of course she knew more than I.»

On the other hand Pyle, whose love for Phuong is paternalistic, is destined to free her from the frantic but temporary love of Fowler. Pyle’s approach to Phuong is very formal, very rigid and in some way out of context:

«”Peut-on avoir l’honneur?” Pyle was saying in hister-rible accent and a moment later I saw them dancing in silence at the other end of the room, Pyle holding her so far away from him that you expected him at any moment to sever contact. He was a very bad dancer, and she had been the best dancer I had ever known in her days at the Grand Monde.»

And, between these two visions of Phuong, there is the contrast with her sister Hei. Phuong goes in search of protection and acts with submission, while Hei wants for her a rich European husband and she finds decidedly and without fears. Hei has a vision of her sister halfway between an informer and somebody to protect.

The character of Phuong, therefore, is not presented very profiled and in a clear immutable form, and that deny us talk about an stereotype, but is shown us in a polyhedral way and is not indicated if one of the sides corresponds to a more real Phuong than the rest.

Sources

Los peligros de la inocencia: Graham Greene (1904-1991). Carlos Franz. Letras libres magazine [on line] <http://www.letraslibres.com/index.php?art=10101>. 2004.
The Quiet American. Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Quiet_American&oldid=214810531>.

«Democracy was another subject of his, and he had pronounced and aggravating views on what the United States was doing for the world.»

That is another center topic: the behavior of the United States, qualified in many other areas of imperialist, is in Pyle’s mind the necessary one to extend what is good to other parts, his particular conception of democracy. This thought, as it can be evidenced, leads Pyle to internalize also an aphorism, implicitly: the end justifies the means. His internalized ideas implies this aphorism. And this allows another Pyle to appear, a more mysterious, more sinister and more cold-blooded side to Pyle.

There are some clues that the narrator has given throughout the novel to indicate this. As an idealist, firstly Pyle only wants to make good actions. But in a given moment, in the watch tower where he and Fawler take refuge to prevent an attack, occurs something surprising:

«Just as I rose the voice stopped: the silence made me jump. Pyle said sharply, “Drop your rifle.” I had just time to wonder whether the sten was unloaded-I hadn’t hothered to look-when the man threw his rifle down.»

It’s surprising that Pyle wants to arm himself, but it’s still more surprising that Pyle is going to use the weapon even to kill a human being:

Pyle exauained bis sten. “There doesn’t seem any mystery about this,” he said. “Shall I fire a burst?”
“No, let them hesitate. They’d rather take the post without firing and it gives us time. We’d better clear outfast.” “They may be waiting at the bottom.”
There is another episode in which it is sensed that Pyle can be a little cold-blooded, although he does not remain clear if it’s only unwise or he is really somebody that stands up to the fear. It is the moment when Pyle sails up to Phat Diem alone to talk with Fawler, endangering his own life:
“How on earth did you get here?” I asked. “They let me through as far as Nam Dinh to see our trachoma team, and then I hired a boat.” “Aboat?”
“Oh, some kind of a punt-I don’t know the name for it. As a matter of fact I had to buy it. It didn’t cost much.” “And you came down the river by yourself?” “It wasn’t really difficult, you know. The current was with me”. “You are crazy.”

Another moment in which the cold-bloodness of Pyle is shown is when it helps Fowler escape from the attack in the watch tower. In this case it is not longer only that he dares to use a weapon, is not either that seems cold-blooded but maybe he is not: in this case is more evident, he risks its own life to save that of Fowler, so it’s undoubtedly a cold-blooded action:

He crept round to my side and hoisted my arm over his shoulder. I wanted to whimper like the boy in the tower and then I was angry, but it was hard to express anger in a whisper. “God damn vou, ‘Pyle, leave me alone. I want to stay.” “You can’t.”
He was pulling me half on to his shoulder and the pain was intolerable. “Don’t be a bloody hero. I don’t want to go.”

All this gives us clues on the side of the more cold-blooded side of Pyle. But undoubtedly, we see the more mysterious, more sinister and more cold-blooded side to Pyle when we find out about his relations with general Thé. The reader does not know the first the facts of this relation through Pyle, but through another character, called Heng, who informs Fowler about some connections between Pyle and Thé. Related with this, Fowler respond to Heng:

“You mean you’ve established a kind of connection between Pyle and the General,” I said. “A very slender one. It’s not news anyway. Everybody here goes in for Intelligence.”

Later the suspicions that Heng introduces are confirmed, brutally. Some bombs camouflaged in bicycles exploded and as a result of that incident the linking between Thé and Pyle was evidenced. Pyle was arming Thé as Heng suspected. Fowler warned then Pyle:

“Those bicycle bombs. They were a good joke, even though one man did lose a foot. But, Pyle, you can’t trust men like The. They aren’t going to save the East from Communism. We know their kind.”

Pyle did that because he is an idealistic young, he believed York Harding, and York Harding thought that it was necessary a «third way» in Asia to obtain the Democracy: nor Communists neither Colonialists can bring democracy to Asia, only a «third way» can according to York. Pyle was idealistic and also innocent, but besides there is a more mysterious, more sinister and more cold-blooded side to Pyle than the Pyle we can see at the beginning of the story.

One of those moments is the conversation that Fowler and Pyle maintain in the headquarters of the French officers. The other moment is also a conversation among Fowler and Pyle, in this case they maintain it after the car in which they travel goes out of gasoline.

In this allegory, Fowler would symbolize Europe; Pyle, the United States of America and Phoung, Vietnam.

Firstly let’s see how Fowler acts. The representation of Europe in this allegory is a person with experience. The reason why he appears disappointed with regard to noble ideals as the democracy is, precisely, his experience. For example, when he and Pyle come into the watch tower, force the two Vietnamese that there are to host them and disarm them, they have the following conversation:

I said to Pyle, “Do you think they know they are fighting for Democracy? We ought to have York Harding here to explain it to them.” “You always laugh at York,” Pyle said.
“I laugh at anyone who spends so much time writing about what doesn’t exist–mental concepts.”

We see how Europe is according to this analogy: is disappointed with regard to the democracy as an ideal, in general, in part because his real behavior is not accorded with what this ideal represents; and more precisely, is skeptical on the possibility of bring the democracy (in the European sense of the term at least) to realities different to the European one. In the words of Fowler already the end of the eurocentrism and the recognition of different realities is observed: «They want enough rice, (…) they don’t want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another. They don’t want our white skins around telling them what they want.», Fowler says. And also says:

“Oh no,” I said, “we’ve brought them up in our ideas. We’ve taught them dangerous games, and that’s why we are waiting here, hoping we don’t get our throats cut. We deserve to have them cut. I wish your friend York was here too. I wonder how he’d relish it.”

As it can be seen in the previous quote, Fowler, besides not trusting the European point of view for Vietnam, he sees nothing related with noble ideas in this war. Pyle himself (who represents the United States of America) recognizes that Fowler-Europe has more experience than he: «You’ve seen so much more of the world than I have.», says him. Europe already has a lot of experience in wars and in colonialism.

The European position represented by Fowler is cynical, skeptical with regard to the supposed values in the background of the war; he is convinced in fact that the real motivations of the war are strategic motivations, not idealistic ones.

Pyle’s position is very different. He, who represents the United States of America in the allegory, thinks that the contingent of his country fights for the democracy in Vietnam, against the communism, for freedom. Pyle thinks this is the battle that is being issued. He thinks that the occidental values that he defends can be transferred to a different reality: the reality of Vietnam.

Besides, Pyle not only is convinced that what he defends is the best for Vietnam, but he also thinks that he perceives the support of the population: «They don’t want Communism», they support the democracy even if they pay it with human lives: «In a way you could say they died for Democracy», they long for freedom in the occidental sense of the term. Pyle has learned to be idealistic reading York Harding and so believes there is a right background in that war.

In the conviction that both know what Vietnam needs, one from the cynicism that gives him the experience, another from his learned idealism, the arguments that each of them give, are startling. They are incompatible, that is why they are startling with all regard to the war and, parallelly in the allegory, they are startling with all regard to Phoung in the conversation in the headquarter of the French officers : «She’ll just have to choose between us, Thomas. That’s fair enough.»

When Fowler says that he can not marry Phuong, in the allegory that means the impossibility for Europe to commit itself with Vietnam in the same intensity in which the Americans can do it. When he stands out that Pyle can offer her more money, refers to the biggest economic power of the United States of America.

With all these data the position of Europe remains clear, but Europe also takes part in the war. It already takes part without the idealistic cloak. He knows that the best for the Vietnamese would be not to take part (he knows that the eurocentrism is false) but that is not the best for Europe’s interests. That, transferred to the allegorical Vietnam, which is Phoung, appears as follow:

“Oh, but I know you’re straight, absolutely straight, and we both have her interests at heart.” Suddenly I couldn’t bear his boyishness any more. I said, I don’t care that for her interests. You can have her interests. I only want her body. I want her in bed with me. I’d rather ruin her and sleep with her than, than . . . look after her damned interests.” He said, “Oh,” in a weak voice, in the dark.

I went on, “If it’s only her interests you care about, for God’s sake leave Phuong alone. Like any other woman she’d rather have a good . . .”

Actually, Fowler-Europe is convinced that what needs Vietnam is that neither Europe nor United States of America take part in their problems. And he thinks firmly that the position of Pyle with regard to Phoung, which is the same to say the position of United States with regard to Vietnam, is to cloak idealism and good intentions what in fact is the search of an advantage (which in any case Europe does not conceal), something that in fact is going to be very harmful to Vietnam. That is why Fowler sentences, refering at the same time Phyle’s behavior with Phoung and USA behavior with war:

«I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.»

In The importance of being Earnest Oscar Wilde is doing social criticism. He fights against the system but it’s a battle where victory is impossible. Wilde knows this, so he uses irony and something like caricatures (a transcoding of caricature from painting to the literature) as his arms for this battle. The dominant class is that which is portrayed in the interview. The most obvious thing is that they are from high-class:

Jack. Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.

Lady Bracknell. I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an
occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is. How old are you?

Lady Bracknell’s answer shows that her conception of Jack is a man with a lot of leisure (conception probably right). This is that kind of impression that someone has when she is talking with a person from high-class. Wilde uses this answer also with irony to portray people form high class in London as idle people. This fact that characters are people from the dominant class is an evidence that proves that The importance of being Earnest is a comedy of manners.

Following this idea – i.e., this is a comedy whose characters are form high-class –, we may see that Lady Bracknell is doing an interview in order to find a husband for her daughter. This interview may remind us of the job interviews of work. Here we can see, again, the irony: it’s as if the mother must find a proper husband for his merits. This is because get married is – in the world view of the characters – the most act important for a woman, because if they do not get married, they would be excluded form the society.

In order to maintain this irony we have found that very often, characters have to be quick at replying to each other. We can see it in the following quote:

Lady Bracknell. Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of character. What number in Belgrave Square?

Jack. 149.

Lady Bracknell. [Shaking her head.] The unfashionable side. I thought there was something. However, that could easily be altered.

Jack. Do you mean the fashion, or the side?

Lady Bracknell. [Sternly.] Both, if necessary, I presume. What are your polities?

Jack. Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.

We can see here that Jack’s answer “Do you mean the fashion, or the side?” that is quick and full of ingenious, a mix that provokes the irony. In this same quote we can see another obvious social criticism: when asked about its political affiliations, Jack responses “I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal
Unionist.”, so Wilde is indirectly saying that Liberal Unionist are “none” in politics, another evidence also of irony.

The social criticism doesn’t stop here. Oscar Wilde wants to make for us a more complete criticism, so he criticised a society in which the appearance of thinks is the most important thing: a hypocritical society. In this context, Lady B. asks Jack to show her his real parents when he says that he is “found”. It is hypocritical because, as we can see, in other parts of The Importance of being Earnest family is not for them something too important – actually, the character Algernon complains of his family.

So, the interview between Lady Bracknell and Jack hasn’t got a happy ending (although the whole comedy, as a comedy of manners). Lady B asks some questions to Jack in order to take note of this particular kind of “merits” and all of that was good until he says he is “found”, that is, he has lost his parents. In this moment, the appearances, the superficial side of the problem, makes Lady Bracknell adopt a conservative resolution.

To sum up, Wilde uses the double entendres (sometimes he remarks this point by making his characters ask about the clear meaning: “Do you mean the fashion, or the side?”), resulting in sarcasm, satire and irony, to criticise a whole class (not only individuals: his characters, as long as they are like caricatures, doesn’t represent individuals). All these facts contribute to make a comedy, with all the characteristics of the realist subgenere of “comedy of manners” and full of humour.

Most evident at the first view of them is the use in Poetry of deviation in rules of substance, that is not used in The Devil’s Advice to Story Tellers. The usual layout is in Poetry absolutely deviant, in order to present each idea in an analogous way.

However, enjambments are hardly used by both poems. Poetry makes enjambments almost between one graphically separated stanza and another:

“Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. “

makes use of enjambments between two (not graphically separated) lines:

Nor yet make diligent transcriptions of
Known instances of virtue, crime or love.

The justification for that use of enjambments is that both poems are a sort of poetized prose. For the same reason, the rhyme hasn’t been respected in Poetry. In Robert Graves it has been respected, it has got a full-rhyme and end-rhyme that sometimes forces the author to use the figure of speech of hyperbaton, as in th line “Will make the whole read human and exact”, for example.

This poem have got a quite regular pattern, in contrast with Marianne Moore’s one. This is because in this last case the distintion between the presented poem and the transcoded prose is even minor.

Poetry starts with the sentence “I, too, dislike it”, referring to poetry. There is a contradiction, because someone is saying that hates poetry inside a poem. It’s wrong to identify the poetic I, the character who is telling the story or talking, with the author, but, in this case is which the poem is talking about poetry it’s reasonable to think that the author has put her ideas in the text.

That sentence reminds the phrase pronounced by a cellist that Theodor Adorno quoted in his Aesthetic Theory: “I just hate music”. Maybe Marianne Moore wants to say something similar to what Adorno wants using this quote: the most important in art (in poetry, in this case) is not the aesthetic pleasure but the intellectual understanding, idea that is very related with what the poem says in following lines. (However, the hypothesis that Moore had taken it out from Adorno’s theory is wrong as long as Aesthetic Theory has been published in 1970 and Moore’s poem was revised last time in 1935.)

Then poem talks about two faces of poetry. There is a way of read, “ with a perfect contempt for it”, that gives the reader the chance to view the genuine. It is exemplified throw the figure of speech of syntactic parallelism: “Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise”.

The other face is that that have the power of twitch the skin of an immovable critic like a horse that feels a flea, using the same words used in the poem, but that have a problem: we don’t admire what we don’t understand. To illustrate this uses some examples of imagery.

However, poetry is not as school-books, so a reader is interested in poetry as long as is interested both in the raw material that compose it and in the genuine part.

In The Devil’s Advice to Story Tellers, the Devil, who is a universal symbol of stereotype of behavior characterized by not act following rules, advices to story tellers that they don’t must make complicated calculations of the way to tell a history, they should simply lie, following the impulse and taking ideas from fantasy.

This are, to sum up, the ideas taken from this two artworks that talk about art.

From the very beginning, he shows to the reader that he is a person with prejudices. The blind man, Robert, is about to arrive to visit him and his wife and in this context he shows negative predisposition in relation with that fact. He is not open-minded at all. We can see this in actuations like this one: “Beulah. Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman. Was his wife a Negro?” or this other: “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to”.

The fact is that the blind man and narrator’s wife have a past in common. In this sense, narrator is out of their conversation. Unlike narrator, his wife is not uncomfortable about the visit of Robert. He enjoys it a lot, because they are friends and also because she has a biggest feeling of humanity than his husband. Her answer “You don’t have any friends” is a proof of that, also her feelings of compassion for the blind man. The only way they all have to be in some way related is using the tapes. But when in one tape Robert is about to give his opinion of narrator, there is an interruption.

This makes a difference between narrator and his wife. But there are also remarkable differences between narrator and Robert. Paradoxically, narrator is blinder in an intellectual way (in figurative sense, of course) than Robert, who is in fact blind. Narrator’s close-mind prevents him to see correctly reality: Robert’s wife is not a Negro, Robert is not a man that “moved slowly and never laughed”, but a poor blind man, etc. In contrast, Robert is a man with a great initiative and open minded, always willing to learn, anywhere (“I’m always learning something. Learning never ends. It won’t hurt me to learn something tonight.”, “I do now, my dear. There’s a first time for everything”).

What actually is a shared characteristic of these three characters is that all can be frustrated, and in fact they are. Narrator confesses he does not like his job and he has no chance to change it, narrator’s wife committed a failed suicide in the past because of a tormented relation and now she may feel misunderstood by his husband (“If you love me (…) you can do it for me”), and Robert is blind and his wife is dead. There’s another thing: all of them are vicious. The blind man less than the others, but they all drink and smoke illegal drugs. It is a common characteristic of Carver’s characters and it is related in some way with the frustration about life.

But to share this characteristic is not enough to make narrator feel comfortable in the conversation with his wife and Robert. He often tries to get in the conversation but doesn’t find the proper words: “’Likewise,’ I said. I didn’t know what else to say. Then I said, ‘Welcome. I’ve heard a lot about you.’” He seemed lost in the conversation.

In contrast, the narrator’s wife attitude in the conversation is absolutely natural and fluid, except in two cases: when she thinks her husband is not behaving well (“[...] I got up and turned on the TV. My wife looked at me with irritation.”) and when he tries to make Robert as comfortable as possible:

My wife covered her mouth, and then she yawned. She stretched. She said, “I think I’ll go upstairs and put on my robe. I think I’ll change into something else. Robert, you make yourself comfortable,” she said.

“I’m comfortable,” the blind man said.
“I want you to feel comfortable in this house,” she said.
“I am comfortable,” the blind man said.

What happens is that the blind man belongs to the past of the woman, but this is not the main role of narrator: blind man will be his immediate future. They reverse roles. Gradually, narrator’s wife moves out of the conversation (in a radical way: she falls asleep), and the blind man keeps on slowly destroying the wall of prejudices and lack of confidence that narrator has built.

Following this process, while narrator’s wife is totally lost and asking “What’s going on? Robert, what are you doing? What’s going on?”, narrator and Robert are who, now, monopolize the action: narrator is not lost now, he is living new experiences thanks to that man that he despised and who during all the story has taken the initiative.

Carver’s characters are usually from low social classes, even in Cathedral. His characters usually have some grade of alcoholism, even in this story, as we have been able to check. Characters often feel their lives empty, they are frustrated. Sometimes they use TV as an evasion element: in Cathedral is also a social element that helps the blind man to break the wall of narrator. So Carver had a clear idea about what he wants to describe, and he does it from a pessimistic point of view (because of some biographical reasons), but at least he gives his characters the chance to discover, during the story, that they are actually frustrated. Character’s virtues, defects, fears, limitations are conditioned by all this things I have explained and related to this frustration.