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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What color is all of the blind man’s attire when he arrives?

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

3. Of his knowledge of cathedrals, the blind man says that he knows from the television show that they took how many workers to build?

4. What vegetable does the narrator’s wife throw when she has an argument with the narrator in the beginning of the story?

5. At what point in the story does the protagonist reach his major epiphany?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What does the reader learn about the narrator when he and his wife discuss their friends prior to the blind man’s arrival?

3. How does the narrator describe the scene once his wife has gone upstairs after dinner?

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

5. What is “minimalist fiction” and how does it apply to “Cathedral”?

6. How does the narrator’s wife respond to the marijuana downstairs when she returns?

7. What drives the narrative plot of “Cathedral”? What effect does this have on the plot’s structure?

8. How does the narrator describe Robert’s arrival in the story?

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

10. What do the narrator and Robert say in their discussion of religion in the story?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the important expository elements established in the first two to three pages of “Cathedral.” Why is it important for the reader to understand the history of the narrator’s wife and her friendship with the blind man? How does this information serve the plot?

Essay Topic 2

Define “foreshadowing” in narrative literature and discuss examples of foreshadowing in “Cathedral.” How is the topic of religion foreshadowed in the dinner scene and later explored in the ending of the story? What else does the author foreshadow? What purpose does this example serve in the narrative? Does it build suspense? Does it create humor?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the Middle Ages and the erection of cathedrals during this historical period. Where are the cathedrals in the story (on television) principally located? Why? How are these structures described?

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