The Things We Hide (philosophy)

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---written by thewriter197

---paid by Ashford University

“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story about humans hiding things they want to do from each other. We all hide things from others even we do not want to admit it. Raymond wrote a story that show forms of deconstruction. Deconstruction, is the use of words to mean something that goes beyond what is written. Phrases that show pictures that do not need words to explain. Deconstruction in “Cathedral” show something that we hide personally. Carver’s “Cathedral” show signs of Deconstruction from ideas of characters who say things in private.

Raymond’s “Cathedral” reminds us that we like to hide sexual things we really want (Nesset, 1994, p.116). Raymond writes, “It’s a lot of work between us when we could meet up at some hotel like I been telling you (Weise, 2014, p.125).” A married woman is speaking to a blind man about sexual interest. She has known this blind man since child hood and has a deep sexual interest in him. She hides this from her husband because she wants to be safe. Her husband makes her feel safe because he has a stable job. The blind man is on disability and might not be able to take care of her financial needs. Disabled people receive a check from the government, but the check is only enough to get by. The check is not enough to satisfy a woman’s financial need. The woman in the story wanted to be with someone who was financially successful also. So, she decided to marry into money to fulfill her fiances and hide her sexual needs away.

Why does Raymond suggest that we all hide our sexual wants? Money might be the answer to hiding sexual desires. Money plays a big role in why people get married. People would like to get married for love, but love does not pay the bills. It is hard to think about love when your finances are not in order. Love is said to be the driving force behind any decision that seems impossible. However, money has a way of reminding people that it matters more then being happy. Majority of parents living on earth, want their daughters to marry for money. Money pays the bills. Money puts a roof over your head. Money puts food in your stomach. It is simple to see why people choose money over love.

However, Raymond’s “Cathedral” also infers that humans have sexual desires that go beyond money. The wife in “Cathedral” was financial successful. But, it was not enough to satisfy what she really wants. She really wanted a certain sexual flare that she could only get from the blind man in “Cathedral.” What does this say about humans? We want sexual things in the world to feel complete. We do not want to look complete. Looking complete and being financial successful does not give one the power to “do what they want.” Sometimes success is something that looks good and can not be shifted. Raymond believes that we do not want to look good. We want to feel good. This “feeling good” is the deconstruction that Raymond uses when he speaks with the character’s thoughts on lines.

Feeling good might be what is all about. We all want to feel good in the end right? We all want to feel like we are happy. Being happy is not something that is based on looks. Looking good only matters when the person we love is concerned about it. The person also has to be a “lover.” A lover is more connected to a person’s feelings then a finale friend who can pay the bills. There are some things money can not buy and one of them is feeling happy. Money tends to take things from you that you are never going to get back. Things you can’t ignore and pretend like they do not exist.

A writer named “Nesset” would add that “Cathedral” has a deconstruction meaning that is aligned with people sticking to a safe place. Nesset believes that people behave similar to the people in “Cathedral.” They want to stay in their own little safe place (Nesset, 1994, p.116). It makes sense if you put a little thought into it. People want to feel safe at all times, so they do things to feel safe. They keep their job to feel they are financially stable. They do what they are told so they do not upset people. They follow the crowd so they do not get humiliated. They choose a safe career so they will have a job lined up. They try to do things to please their parents. We all fall victim to this “safe space.” It is very hard to break out of it. We all want people to like us for who we are, but we really can not afford to take risks. Risks, are things that can kill us or cause people to hate us. Nobody wants to be hated because it is easier to get though life without dealing with enemies or danger.
Raymond suggest that the reason we avoid danger is because it is hard. Raymond is right in some regard. It is hard to move up in the world. It is hard to motivate yourself to do something you need to do. It is hard to wake up in the morning and tell your self that you need to go to work. It is hard to motivate your self to do something you really care about for no financial gain. We humans tend to not do something that is hard because doing hard stuff stresses us out. Doing hard stuff makes us feel like we have no purpose life. Doing stuff that is hard rips us from something we hold dear to ourselves. Doing something that is hard forces us to change into something that we do not want to be. Doing hard stuff makes humans complain about the things they hate. Doing something that is easy on the other hand makes humans feel that we are enjoying life. But, maybe that is the less stressful lie that we keep telling ourselves. We tell ourselves that the easy way is the best way. But, is that really the the truth? Maybe the easy way is the way of nothingness and maybe nothing is what makes us feel incomplete. Raymond was on to something big when he wrote lines to tell thoughts of characters in private.

The public eye is something that Raymond believes we are afraid of. We are filled with fear to watch the public eye. Raymond wrote, “I don’t like to put myself out there. I’d no more like to put myself out there (Weise, 2014, p.128).” The wife is speaking to the blind man. She tells him that being open in the world is like getting hit by a bus (Weise, 2014, p.128). Raymond is right in some regard. When you be your self, it can sometimes feel like your being hit by a bus. You can get hit so hard to the point where you don’t want to get hit anymore. Sometimes when you get made fun of, it reminds you to never do that thing that you did to be original ever again. It hurts to be original. It hurts to try something new because the eye is always watching and sometimes the eye feels like a bus. It hurts being judged. Sometimes it hurts so much to the point where we become filled with fear of the public eye that watches us when we walk outside. Raymond’s “Cathedral” show a deconstruction meaning that the watching eye of judgment haunts all of us.

Being judged is something nobody wants to deal with. Being judged has its consequences. It means that people will not respect you. It means that it will make you feel stupid sometimes. It means that it will It is hard to turn against the public. The public has a way of controlling everything that you do. The public tends to mock you when you do something your not suppose to do. Most people do not fight the judgments because they don’t want to feel the pain of being judged. They stay in their safe zones and pretend like they like the majority rule. It is easier to pretend then it is be something. Being something requires a whole lot of hard work that most people are not willing to commit. Being something also means that you have to make sacrifices that go beyond what you want to keep.

Raymond’s “Cathedral” also suggest through the characters that most people are not willing to make sacrifices. The wife in the story was not willing to leave her financial stability to be with the person she love. Why? Sacrifice is something according to Raymond that people are not willing to make because it cost too much. If the wife sacrificed her husband, she would lose her house and her family respect. Her husband and her house is a big sacrifice to be with the person you love. She would have gave up too much to be successful. That is why people do not like to make sacrifices. A sacrifice can change someone’s life, but it comes at a great price. Most do not want to make the sacrifice because a person has to sacrifice something that is very important at times to achieve the desired result. The wife in the story did not want to sacrifice the stable lifestyle to live the life of her dreams. She wanted to be with her lover, but she also wanted to be in a “safe place.”

In my personal opinion, we retreat to the safe place because we are hiding something about our selves. We feel it almost every day. That we want to be something that makes us happy, but we consider the world too much. It is easy to retreat to a safe structure where people like you because you do what everybody else does. However, doing easy things has a way of making you feel like your life has no purpose. Hardship gives us purpose and meaning. Hardship teaches us how to deal with enemies and situations. There will be times in life when buildings will fall a part. They will be times in life when people turn against you. The only way to prepare your self for that day is make the tough decisions. Life will not always be what people say it will be. It changes fast and without warning. The world will also change with it. The safe place will become something in a different direction that makes you think that “you should have did this.” The safe place is a false reality that we keep telling ourselves to make life seem like its under control.

Raymond’s “Cathedral” also shows us the deconstruction of a alcoholic. Why does someone become an alcoholic. If you look into the story of the “Cathedral,” you will realize that the story talks about a husband who complains about his wife leaving him. The husband is also drunk when he speaks. Raymond writes, “What is it about her?” and “What do you like about her?” The husband say this in a drunk tone because he is admitting that his wife is cheating on him. He is also admitting that he is a failure with his wife. The fact that his wife wants to be with another man shows that he failed as a loving husband. The story gives us an idea of why people drink alcohol. Most of the time, people drink to forget about the failures they have made in life. Failure is something that you can not just wipe under the rug. Failure is something that stays with you day after day. It haunts your mind and won’t leave you alone. Raymond believes that being an alcoholic is connected to failure. It would be true to people who drink to escape instead of drinking to have fun.

Failure is a deep conceited notion that Raymond mentions all throughout his story. He mentions the story in the beginning when the wife talks about being bored with her husband. He mentions it in the middle when the wife talks about having sex with another man. He mentions it in the end when the husband talks about the wife leaving him while drinking alcohol. Raymond mentions failure a lot in this story to infer that being a failure does not always mean that you failed at material objects. It can also mean that you failed at making life choices that you could have made right.

Failure, is something that people hide from each other. People do not want to looked a upon as a failure. They always try to come up with the best stories and the best explanations for things. Most people do not want to admit their failures because it shows weakness which is shown to everybody else. Everybody wants to look like the hero, but nobody wants to do the hero training. In other words, failure is something you have to face or you can keep pretending like its going to go away one day. In reality, that is not going to happen. You must figure out a way to overcome failure or you will end up just like the people in the “Cathedral.” People who are filled with failure because they did not want to face failure. Pretending like it will go away when the reality is that it will not go away until something is done about it. This decontruction of failure is what Raymond was trying to teach us in his work.

The “Cathedral” story also show us that when we are not honest, we become intoxicated with regret. People go through life not being honest with themselves. People do things they do not want to do to have things. Things are something you want but not need. People sometimes spend their whole life chasing something only to realize that they did not want it in the first place. The deconstruction in regret is that we all experience moments where we regret not doing something that “could of” worked. The blind man in the “Cathedral” story could of slept with the wife which would of made him feel complete. Its not like he is getting action anyway. He is a blind man and instead making the best of his choices he gets caught up into making the worst choices to please people that do not care for him in the first place. It doesn’t take a blind man to realize that the world does not care for you unless you have a use. The man “could of” made his life more interesting but he wanted to please everybody. His life then became one filled with women he could have had sex with but chose not to. His life became one where he could have tried interesting things and took some risks but decided not to. So, he ended up becoming filled with regret which is something we will all face when we decide to not act on what we really want.

Raymond’s “Cathedral” shows us that playing safe all the time has its consequences. You never experience life when you play it safe. You never experience what its like to pursue  your dreams when you play it safe. You never experience what it is like to love when you play it safe. You never have a “real” conversation when you play it safe. You never hang around interesting people when you play it safe. The wife in Raymond’s “Cathedral” played it safe her whole life which is why she never been around people who do interesting things. Playing it safe is good for stability in a world that stays the same. Not playing it safe it gives you options to do what you want to do. That is why playing it safe is not a good idea. The world changes and you realize that you should of did more then played it safe. You should have did something with your life. It hurts when you see people you went to high school with do something that you could have did.

Raymond’s “Cathedral” shows us a story this more then about a wife cheating on her boring husband. It about people realizing that they missed out on an opportunity that could change their life or make them feel successful. In life, we do get caught up in the meaning behind the words. We do not look for our own meaning in life. Most of us just cling on to whatever the majority is doing. This belief changes over time and that is the essence that Raymond is trying to teach people. Life is not what it looks like on T.V. You have to make your own life to understand what life truly is. But, you got to find it for your self. Otherwise, you will be like most people looking for something that looks good so they can “pretend” to be happy. Each of the characters in the “Cathedral” was pretending to be happy. The wife married for money instead of love. The Husband worked too much instead of spending time with his wife. The blind man passed his opportunity for sex because he felt his disability was something that did not deserve any sexual obtainment. The husband also drank a lot when he realize that his wife wanted to have sex with another man because he worked too much. Each person is chasing a false sense of happiness. A sense of happiness that is based on having material things instead of having things that matter in life. That is what Raymond was trying to teach us in one of his works. The world is not something you join to fit in. You join it to find your way down the rabbit hole and hope it completes who you are. That is the overall goal in life is to be complete before the day you die in order to find something that you can call your life was worth living. It is not worth living pretending to be happy and never taking a step into something you want to do so you will have everybody like you. Choose your life or run away from it. The choice is yours.

Reference:

Clark Robert C., a. (2012). Keeping the Reader in the House: American Minimalism, Literary Impressionism, and Raymond Carver's “Cathedral”. Jml: Journal Of Modern Literature, (1), 104. doi:10.2979/jmodelite.36.1.104

Facknitz, M. A. (1986). 'THE CALM,' 'A SMALL, GOOD THING,' AND 'CATHEDRAL': RAYMOND CARVER AND THE REDISCOVERY OF HUMAN WORTH. Studies In Short Fiction, 23(3), 287.

Messer, H. C. (2012). Fleeing the Wasteland of Alcoholism: Alienation, Recovery, and Hope in Raymond Carver's Cathedral. Studies In Short Fiction, 37(1), 43-58.

Nesset, K. (1994). Insularity and self-enlargement in Raymond Carver's 'Cathedral.'. Essays In Literature, (1), 116.

Weise, J. (2014). Cathedral by Raymond Carver. The Literary Review, (4), 122.