View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does the narrator’s wife look at him when he turns on the television during the talk with the blind man after dinner?
(a) Enviously
(b) With admiration
(c) With irritation
(d) Thankfully

2. When was Raymond Carver’s short story collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? Published?
(a) 1980
(b) 1976
(c) 1969
(d) 1985

3. When does the narrator say his wife was to marry her fiancé when she worked for the blind man?
(a) On Easter Sunday
(b) At the beginning of summer
(c) At the end of the summer
(d) On Christmas Eve

4. The narrator surmises of the blind man’s wife that she could wear what color eye-shadow around one eye and it wouldn’t make a difference?
(a) Silver
(b) Black
(c) Green
(d) White

5. What are the supports called on a cathedral that are built to steady a structure by opposing its outward thrusts?
(a) Buttresses
(b) Pillars
(c) Crossbeams
(d) Trusses

Short Answer Questions

1. How is the narrator’s viewpoint of blind people characterized in the beginning of the story?

2. In what year was the anthology entitled Cathedral published?

3. What does the blind man ask the narrator about the paintings on the walls of the church in the television show?

4. The narrator tells the blind man, “In those olden days, when they built cathedrals, men wanted to be” what?

5. “Cathedral” is a short story that is driven by what literary element?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are the characters in “Cathedral” representative of Raymond Carver’s style?

2. Where does the rising action take place in “Cathedral”?

3. What is signified by the narrator’s final lines in the story?

4. What takes place in the story as it builds to its climax?

5. What prompts the narrator to begin speaking during the television show?

6. Where in the story do you see the first elements of transformation in the protagonist?

7. How is the theme of alienation illustrated through the protagonist in the story?

8. How is the post-dinner conversation described by the narrator? What prompts him to turn on the television?

9. What are the narrator’s thoughts after his wife falls asleep, leaving him alone with Robert?

10. What happened to the narrator’s wife during the years that she did not see the blind man? How did she maintain contact with Robert?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 870 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample