Cathedral - Summary

In the story Cathedrals   by Raymond Carver it seems unclear why the husband dislikes his wife’s blind friend Robert so much, but after further examination it becomes clear that he doesn’t know his wife as well as her friend does. He begins to feel threatened by her friendship to another man that clearly knows her very well. There are hints that the relationship between the husband and wife is on the verge of a possible separation. They no longer communicate they way that they did in the beginning. there are hints to lead me to believe that neither one are really happy in their relationship, just comfortable because it is so routine for them. For example on page 307 the wife said “If you love me, you can do this. If you don’t love me, okay.” This started me to think that their relationship is not what it may have been in the past and the wife may doubt the way he feels about her. On page 313 the narrator and Robert spend some time together without the wife. He says “I’m glad for the company.” “And I guess I was. Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep. My wife and I hardly ever went to bed at the same time. I thought this was a strange thing, not to go to bed together very often. Later in the story on page 316 the husband goes into the wife’s room looking for paper and a pen. I have never seen a married couple have separate rooms in a house. This was yet another thing that I missed in the first reading and I think puts a little more insight into why the husband may feel threatened by the friendship that his wife had with another man.