HAPPINESS

Option 3- Free-Write

Happy Endings? Apparently Not So Happy Endings

Honestly, I felt that Margaret Atwood’s story, “Happy Endings,” was quite disturbing yet true in some ways. It was mostly disturbing though because looking at life in terms of just beginnings and ends is a really depressing view point. The beginning of anything and the end of anything are always the thinnest layers of any story or experience and so much of the focus and excitement is in the “middle” part. But Atwood deliberately leaves out any details of the “middle” of the story except for main points in order for the reader to have an understanding and be able to follow the story line. She focuses on the beginning and the end and then finishes her story by saying that that is all that matters because that is the easiest to deal with. But I personally feel that the more complex part of something is the more meaningful part. For instance, the beginning of the story is easily forgotten, and most hate the end when they get to it, so what is left is the meat in the middle. Yet she is also right. When you think about, no matter how exciting a story is or how fun an experience, the end is really what sticks out in your mind. Let’s say you are a huge Yankee fan and have the opportunity to go to a Yankee vs. Red Sox game. It may be an extremely eventful game that keeps you on your toes but if the Red Sox win in the end, that is all that will matter to you.

Overall, I find it makes for a happier experience if you can appreciate the beginning, middle, and end of any experience. Each has its own unique good and bad qualities and they all deserve to be valued. Though it is sometimes hard to deal with the complexity of the “middle” events because of all the action that takes place there, it should still be treasured for what it is!

What is a ghost story without suspense? Or a great detective story without tension? Simply nothing. It is the elements of suspense and/or tension that make a story great. As stated by Raymond Carver “There has to be tension, a sense that something is imminent, that certain things are in relentless motion, or else, most often, there simply won’t be a story.” These elements (“tension”, “something is imminent”) allow a reader not only to be engaged in the story but also keeps them at the edge of their seat.

In the short story “Cathedral,” the author, Robert Carver uses tension to keep the readers glued to the story. Right from the start, readers can sense uneasiness the narrator feels upon knowing that his wife’s blind friend, Robert, is going to stay at the house for the night. The narrator is bothered by the man’s blindness and is unhappy about him staying. He claimed: “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 265).

Upon Robert’s arrival the tension builds up to the peak when Robert asks the narrator to describe a cathedral that was shown on the TV. The narrator finds himself to be in a crisis because he couldn’t even begin to describe the cathedral even if his “life depended on it” (Carver 276). With much attempt, the narrator is still unable to describe the cathedral, saying, “I’m just not good at it” (Carver 276). The narrator is incapable of describing what he sees with words because the truth is he doesn’t understand cathedrals: “…[C]athedrals don’t mean anything special to me. They’re something to look at on late-night TV. That’s all they are” (Carver 277). But, with the help of Robert, the narrator is able to overcome the panic by drawing the cathedral on paper with his eyes closed. By doing so, he is able to both see and understand, something, which he lacked early on in the story.

As I was reading the story, I thought that the narrator was unhappy with Robert coming to the house because he didn’t like the relationship that his wife had with Robert. It is evident that the wife and Robert are very close friends. Ever since they met they have kept in touch with each other by mailing tapes back and forth. I felt the narrator is jealous of the closeness that his wife and Robert have together because it is that closeness that is lacking in his marriage. While the wife is able to laugh with Robert, she is only able to give frowning looks upon her husband (the narrator). The narrator is unable to feel the closeness or a bond with his wife: “They talked of things that happened to them – to them! I waited in vain to hear my name on my wife’s sweet lips…[B]ut I heard nothing of the sort. More talk of Robert” (Carver 271). There is no feeling of love between the narrator and his wife. This is apparent for the wife gives him a look of irritation when he goes to turn on the TV in front of Robert or the fact that they hardly go to bed at the same time.

Raymond Carver has created a piece of work that keeps you (as a reader) wanting to finish reading the story. Written in short proses, the story is easy to follow. The one main element that keeps the story “Cathedral” going is the element of tension that Caver uses. Tension is first brought to the surface when the narrator has knowledge that his wife’s blind friend Robert is going to stay over their house.  Along the way, there are droplets of hints about the tension between the narrator and his wife. As a reader you can assume that there is no closeness or love between the husband and wife. The wife gives the narrator demeaning looks, while the narrator fails to understand his wife. It is Robert who helps the narrator bridge the gap between seeing and understanding through a very unique and yet simple method; the art of drawing with eyes closed.

“Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver, tells the story of a man named Bub, who must entertain one of his wife’s friends, Robert. Robert, who is a blind man, visits the family after his wife’s passing and wishes to spend some time with the wife of the narrator. Despite his attempts at being a good host to his wife’s guest, Bud seems to fail miserably. Through his actions at the beginning of the story, Bud does not show signs of understanding of what it means to be blind and so, in a sense, becomes blind himself to the life non-seeing people led. In Carver’s writing, Bub’s ideas of the blind are clouded: “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.” (267). Here we can see that Bub has very limited knowledge of the blind and sees them as dull people who lack emotion. Bud’s opinion of the blind seems to seep through as he tries to converse with Robert as well. “Which side of the train did you sit on?”(269) Bub asks Robert. Because Robert is blind, it would not make much of a difference where he had sat on the train because he would not have been able to obverse the view; yet this idea seems to surpass Bub’s thinking and he is left embarrassed in front of his wife and Robert.

Robert seems to understand Bub’s difficulty with the blind and so he tried to help Bub understand what it is like to be a non-seeing person. While watching television together, a picture of a Cathedral comes onto the scene and Robert asks Bub to get some paper so that the two of them can draw it. During the course of their work, Bub closes his eyes and when they are done, does not open them to see his work. At this point, Bub seems to realize that the world of blind is very different from his initial views of it and Carver ends the piece by saying “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything. ‘It’s really something,’ I said” (279). This last part of the story seems to show Bub in a new light; a light in which he is no longer blind to the blind-man’s world.

I leave you with two questions:

1) Have you ever experiences a situation in which you have been approached by a blind person (perhaps on the subway)? If so, what was it like for you? Did you feel awkward in that situation? If not, how do you think you would respond to such a situation?

2) Finally, what do you personally think that Bub saw/felt when he closed his eyes? What would you have seen/felt?

“If you want to be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise, then skip the vitamin pills and the plastic surgeries and try public humiliation, unjust incarceration, or quadriplegia instead” (Gilbert 166).

I think this statement is true. I know someone who is paralyzed from the neck down and has to be in a wheelchair with special machines to control his breathing. He can’t really laugh or smile or physically show his happiness, but when we visited him we could tell that he was happy to see us. He was happy to know that someone cares. In his seemingly unhappy situation, he still has faith in God and hope for a better future. He didn’t just give up his life by committing suicide or anything like that.

“A healthy psychological immune system strikes a balance that allows us to feel good enough to cope with our situation but bad enough to so something about it” (Gilbert 178).

I somewhat agree with this statement because it depends on the person. One person could be really good at handling a situation, while someone else might be a nervous wreck all the time. This balance doesn’t apply to everyone, but it is definitely something desirable to have. This also depends on how much each person cares about the opinions of others. If I could care less about their opinions then what they say won’t affect me. On the other hand, if I only care about the opinions of others, then I will become paranoid. Once again, it depends on each person.

Are people who suffer really happy? Or do they just make the most out of the situation because they have no choice?

How do you think our mind should cope with our environment? Should we care more/less or should there be a balance?

In his short story, “Cathedral”, Raymond Carver says, “they talked of things that had happened to them-to them!-these past ten years.  I waited in vain to hear my name on my wife’s sweet lips: ‘and then my dear husband came into my life’-something like that.  But I heard nothing of the sort” (p. 271).  I thought that this was very rude and inconsiderate because Carver’s wife wasn’t even paying attention to her own husband.  She was deep in conversation with “the blind man”.  I think that his wife should’ve been more careful about how friendly she was going to be with the blind guest because it seemed like it made Carver feel left out.  This is something that I think all married couples should take into consideration.  I’m not saying that a married woman can’t have a friend who’s a man.  I  just think that she should think about how much time she is devoting to her friend compared to the amount of time that she dedicates to her husband, especially when they are in the same room.  This should, off course, apply to men as well.

But, Raymond’s wife wasn’t the only one that acted rudely.  Carver shows how judgmental and stereotypical he is when he says, “his being blind bothered me.  My idea of blindness came from the movies, the blind walked slowly and never laughed.  Sometimes they were lead by seeing-eye dogs.  A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (p. 265).  I definitely disagree with Carver’s view of how blind people are.  I have a friend who is blind and she is always laughing.  Sometimes she is more fun to talk with than others.  I think that he should have accepted the situation he was in (his wife’s blind friend was going to stay over) and given the man a chance.  I think that Carver would agree with me because, by the end of his short story, he seemed to have bonded with the man.

Another conclusion that I can draw from this quote is that we can’t use what we see on television or what we hear from others to judge people.  Television shows and movies usually exaggerate how things really are.  Also, people can’t be categorized into a single group.  There could be some blind people who are sad and who never laugh, but this doesn’t mean that they are all like this.

Questions:

1. Do you think that it would be acceptable for a married man or woman to be really good friends with someone of the opposite sex?  Would problems arise with their spouse?  Why?
2. Why do people use television and other media to judge certain groups of people?  Do you think that there is a solution to this?

-Perla Alvarez

“Learning never ends.” (274)

I agree that we are constantly acquiring new information and that this process endless. Because we only live for a certain amount of time and that life must come to an end, we cannot say we know everything. The brain does not have that kind of capacity to store every single detail of life. Our curiosity also causes us to want to know more. There are many questions such as “What is the purpose of life” and “Are there more life forms out in the galaxy” that are still left unanswered. It is a natural instinct to think about these questions and find ways to answer them in which we must acquire certain knowledge for.

“My dear, I have two TVs. I have a color set and a black-and-white thing, an old relic. It’s funny, but if I turn the TV on, and I’m always turning it on, I turn on the color set.” (272)

I thought this quote was very interesting and had a symbolic meaning to it. I assumed that this story had to have taken place during a time when segregation was still legal because the narrator asked if the blind man’s wife was a Negro. The blind man had two different types of TV sets and he would always turn on the color one.  I thought that this might have had a connection with the idea that the blind man did not see the world in a black and white perspective but instead saw it as a mix of different colors. Of course I agree with the blind man’s view and that the world is meant to be seen in many different colors and not just black and white.

The questions I will ask will be pretty much based on the quotes I have just presented. Do you think that acquiring knowledge will ever have a stop to it?(As in will we, as humans, ever be able to answer every question in life?) I am also interested in what you think of the second quote. Do you think there is another meaning behind this particular quote with the two different TV sets?

“Resilience is often the most commonly observed outcome trajectory following exposure to a potentially traumatic event…negative events do affect us, but they generally don’t affect us as much or for as long as we expect them to.” (167)

Gilbert argues that we often expect bad things to be much worse than we expect them to be and also that they will affect us for longer than they actually will, which I agree with.  However, this idea only applies to events in which lessons can be learned and self-improvement can be achieved, which in most scenarios is the case.  Though there are many situations where the idea of traumatic experiences not being so traumatic don’t apply;  if there is nothing to be learned from an experience, there is nothing to gain and only negatives remain.  These events usually have life-long effects.  Think of soldiers returning from war, Fran Tarkenton losing 3 Super Bowls, or losing a parent at a young age.

“When people do encounter facts that disconfirm their favored conclusions, they have a knack for ignoring them, forgetting them, or seeing them differently than the rest of us do” (184)

This statement couldn’t be more true.  Its nearly impossible to win an argument with someone who already has a heavy set belief in whatever you’re trying to convince them of.  Despite the fact that we live in an “Open Society,”  a society where anyone can state  any opinion of any subject without fear of legal punishment, we are still very closed when dealing with ideas that contradict our own.

Can you think of an event in your life that has negatively impacted you to the extent that you still feel it now? You may not feel “less happy” directly because of it but think of other ways that it may indirectly affect your happiness, i.e. personality, actions.

Do you agree or disagree with Daniel Gilbert’s negative opinion of NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain?

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“The world is this way, we wish to see the world that way, and our experience of the world – how we see it, remember it, and imagine it – is a mixture of stark reality and comforting illusion.” (Gilbert 170)

I agree somewhat with what Gilbert is saying because he is describing this scenario as a whole. Although some people may be contempt with the situation they’re in, there are also those who always want more or want to see the world through a different pair of eyes. Thus, these different pair of eyes would be our brains. Our mind interprets all the things happening in one’s surrounding and evaluates the situation. At times our mind may let us acknowledge reality and the truths we’re bound to face. However there are also times where our mind sets up illusions for us to believe in because the truth is too much to handle. The mind plays tricks on the beholder.

“We just can’t make the best of a fate until it is inescapably, inevitably, and irrevocably ours.” (Gilbert 192).

This second quote is very relevant to my first quote. Although our mind plays tricks on us, we are able to channel this opportunity to better ourselves and our lives. As Gilbert said in the video, we leave someone who picks their nose but if we’re married to someone who picks their nose then we’d look beyond that and find some other aspect to love. This fate that Gilbert describes is what we call life. Sometimes we may not always be able to pick and choose the paths that we follow but we are able to make the best of it. We need to seize the opportunity, good or bad, and we have to acknowledge that this is the journey we shall follow. Thus, in turn, we will truly be optimistic about our destiny.

Two Questions
1. How would you turn a terrible fate into something you look forward to?
2. How do you think someone completely different from you experiences and wishes to see the world?