Cathedral

“They don’t call them birds of paradise for nothing.”

Bud refers to their pet peacock, a strange, out-of-place bird in the middle of country farmland. But Bud procured the peacock because Olla always wanted one. The peacock represents the escape to paradise that they will never be able to achieve. In photos, the bird is exotic, beautiful, and majestic. But in real life, Bud complains that the bird is smelly and demanding, and Jack and Fran find him terrifying when they first pull into the driveway.

“This has been a happy home up to now, he said.” 

Wes just learns that Chef needs the couple to move out of his house. And although Edna attributes their happiness to his sobriety and the rebuilding of their relationship, Wes demonstrates that he believes that the reason they were happy together was that the house was an oasis away from their troubles. Ultimately, Wes believes that he will drink again and preemptively blames this disruption for his inevitable relapse.

“Then I suppose we’d have to be somebody else if that was the case. Somebody we’re not. I don’t have that kind of supposing left in me. We were born who we are. Don’t you see what I’m saying?” 

Wes believes that he and Edna are fundamentally unable to coexist as a couple. Edna imagined that their summer together was a new beginning for their relationship, but Wes demonstrates that he thinks that their past problems and mistakes were not missteps but unavoidable choices. In the same sense, Wes believes that his alcoholism was inevitable and that he will not avoid choosing to drink again, especially if he puts himself back into the same relationship and situation as when he drank in the first place.

“If her husband had been wounded or was ill, or had been hurt in a car accident, that’d be different.” 

Sandy cannot understand the depression her husband falls into after he loses his job. Both are members of the working class and regard working and providing as essential to their identities. When Sandy’s husband cannot find work, he becomes lost and unsure of who he is. He continues to wear his work clothes, even though he can rarely bring himself to leave the house.

“He thought this might be a good way to live—in an old house surrounded by a wall.” 

Myers isolates himself since his divorce, losing contact with both his wife and his son. Over time, he appreciates isolation and is afraid to open himself back up to his son. However, he also describes visiting the sights of Italy alone as lonely, indicating a deep need to connect to someone else. In the end, he decides to keep the metaphorical wall between himself and his son.

“He was tired of trying to make himself understood to strangers and would be glad to be back.” 

Myers refers to the exhaustion of trying to communicate with people who do not speak the same language, but when he returns home, he will be returning to the solitude of his own company. Additionally, after eight years, his son is another stranger with whom he will have to become reacquainted. If his son wants to discuss the past, Myers may have to confront his actions and lack of communication since the end of his marriage.

“She wanted to talk more with these people who were in the same kind of waiting she was in. She was afraid, and they were afraid. They had that in common.” 

Ann wants to connect to someone and to tell someone who understands her fear and pain about her son. But although the two families experience the same type of grief, they are both isolated in their individual fear for their sons. Neither has the capacity to expand their pain and feel for the other’s child. Later, when Ann asks a nurse and learns that Franklin is dead, she barely responds and instead returns to her own son.

“’Don’t have children,’ she told the girl’s image as she entered the front door of the hospital. ’For God’s sake, don’t.’”

Ann imagines having a conversation with Franklin’s sister, who was in the waiting room earlier but left with her family after Franklin died. In this moment, Ann believes that the pain and fear of potentially losing her child is so profound that it outweighs the joy of having him and feeling connected to him. It reflects how even individuals like Ann who routinely open themselves up to human connection can grow isolated and embittered as a result of tragic circumstances outside their control.

“You have to eat and keep going. Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this.” 

The baker has no children and tells the grieving parents that he can’t imagine their suffering. But he keenly understands that one of the most confounding things about speaking to people who suffered a great loss is that there is nothing that can restore them, no words that are effective for consolation. A cinnamon roll won’t ease their grief, but it can provide a small amount of pleasure, especially considering that Ann and Howard were previously too distraught to eat anything.

“You dream! […] Even if you don’t remember. Everybody dreams. If you didn’t dream, you’d go crazy. I read about it. It’s an outlet. People dream when they’re asleep. Or else they’d go nuts.” 

Patti is exasperated with her husband for suggesting that perhaps he does not dream because he can’t remember dreaming. Although they refer to the type of dreams that occur during sleep, the narrator also has no dreams in his waking life. He is entirely distanced from his emotional reality. Ironically, Patti says that dreams are an outlet while describing the ways she is unable to escape the stresses of work, even in her dreams.

“Anyway, we need to try something. We’ll try this first. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. That’s life, isn’t it?” 

Inez claims that she refers only to Lloyd’s ear, but Lloyd hears a larger meaning in this statement. If he applies this thought to their marriage, then he can believe that their separation is only an experiment and hold out hope that they are working toward a goal rather than ending their relationship. Lloyd cannot come to terms with the state of his marriage or his own drinking problem.

“He turned his head to the side and let it hang down. He looked at the things in the room from this new perspective. But it wasn’t any different from the old way of looking, except that everything was on its side.” 

Lloyd turns his head sideways so Inez can help him with his blocked ear. Just as the new perspective doesn’t change the apartment, it also doesn’t change the circumstances of his life or his marriage. He moved out of the house but still can’t see how much his drinking is a problem.

“He’d manage. Worse things could happen to a man. In a way, it was a challenge. But he was up to it. He knew he was.” 

Lloyd talks here about the challenge of sleeping on one side to prevent ear blockages in the future. However, he also refers to his drinking problem. Nevertheless, Lloyd still cannot see that he needs to stop drinking altogether if he wants a chance to get his life back on track and repair his marriage.

“In short, everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well.” 

J.P. told the narrator a story about falling into a well as a child. J.P.’s perspective from the bottom of the well parallels the narrator’s experience of hitting rock bottom with his drinking. When he lost everything, the world looked different. Like 12-year-old J.P., the narrator is terrified that he might not be able to make it back up to the surface. J.P. is discovered and rescued eventually, but the narrator knows that when it comes to alcoholism, they will ultimately have to rescue themselves.

“Young lady, I’ll wager you’ve had your share of trial and error in this life. I know you have. The expression on your face tells me so. But you aren’t going to talk about it. Go ahead then, don’t talk. Let us do the talking. But you’ll get older. Then you’ll have something to talk about. Wait until you’re my age.” 

The older woman is annoyed at Miss Dent for remaining silent. The older couple talks openly about their annoyances with the party they just left and with each other, although their comments fail to offer a complete narrative. Miss Dent just experienced something exceptional—and possibly criminal— but keeps it to herself. The older woman suggests that when Miss Dent ages, she will stop caring what strangers think of her and will just speak her mind. As the older woman’s behavior reveals, however, communication and connection are not the same thing.

“But the passengers had seen things more various than this in their lifetimes. The world is filled with business of every sort, as they well knew. This still was not as bad, perhaps, as it could be.” 

The older couple argues loudly while Miss Dent sits quietly and remains reserved. But regardless, the passengers on the train are not particularly interested in any of them. Within the context of everything that happens in the world, nothing they do is remarkable or especially noteworthy. Just as the older woman suggested, there is no point in being self-conscious around strangers because most of the time, they are too wrapped up in their own lives to be concerned about what others do. 

“That which is truly bonded can never become unbonded.” 

Eileen expects her ex-husband’s love for her to mean that he can forgive her departure because he should want her to be happy. But his grief over losing her is much more complex. Carlyle experiences a bond with Eileen that he often wishes he didn’t feel. They remain oddly connected and able to predict each other’s needs and phone calls, even after months without speaking. 

“It’s only money. Money’s not important except as a necessary medium of exchange. There are more important things than money. But you already know that.” 

Eileen tends to offer airy words of wisdom when she speaks to Carlyle, and her giddy happiness hurts as he grieves the loss of their marriage. He suggests that they end the call because long distance phone calls cost money, but to her, their connection is more important than the money it costs to pay the phone bill. She often speaks in impracticalities. But Carlyle is left with only the practicalities of their marriage, including the care of their children and the maintenance of their home. 

“That seemed the saddest thing of all to him now—that whatever they did from now on, each would do it without the other.” 

Carlyle finally accepts that his wife will never return to him. Although, as Eileen asserts, their bond cannot be broken, Carlyle feels isolated without her. He believed that they would be together for life and that he would never have to feel this loneliness. He comes to terms with the fact that even if he marries another partner, Eileen will not be the one to help raise the children and grow old with him.

“I was glad. We had a lot of empty units for this time of year. And these people seemed like dependable people. Down on their luck, that’s all. No disgrace can be attached to that.” 

Marge is aware that Holits is unemployed when she rents the apartment to his family. While many landlords would be concerned about this, Marge understands that bad luck can happen to anyone. She learns later that Holits gambled their money away on horse racing, but she remains non-judgmental, even when the family breaks their lease and moves out. Marge’s empathy for Betty is possibly rooted in her own dissatisfaction with her marriage.

“The counselor was about the age I am now. I thought she was old. She’s old, I said to myself. I knew her life was half over. And I felt like I knew something she didn’t. Something she’d never know. A secret. Something nobody’s supposed to know, or ever talk about.” 

Betty remembers a guidance counselor who asked her about her dreams. But Betty since discovered that young people shouldn’t be smug about their youth. Now that she is the same age as the guidance counselor, she realizes that she knew less than she thought. And at Betty’s age, she knows that no one will ask her about her dreams again because she feels she is too old to have dreams. Dreams are a common motif throughout the story collection, and they define the lives of the working-class characters to a significant measure.

“If you had to wear this thing between your teeth, I guess you’d catch on in a hurry. When you felt it pull, you’d know it was time. You’d know you were going somewhere.”

When Marge finds the bridle that Holits and Betty left in their apartment, she knows nothing about horses but can surmise how it works. Marge understands the way Holits, whom Betty called a horse expert, bridled his wife. Betty agreed to marry him, and now she is tied to him because she is a mother to his sons and too old to change her life. There is a hint of envy in the last sentence, because Marge remains stuck in the same place with her marriage. In reality, Betty’s hardship is no more pleasant than Marge’s hardship.

“Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.” 

The prospect of blindness confounds and disturbs the narrator. He considers the way a husband sees his wife to be about beauty and appearance. He can’t understand what it would mean to love someone and never know what they look like. His conception of love and marriage is shallow, and it bothers him to hear about someone who might experience marriage in a deeper way than he ever imagined.