Raymond Carver is right about tension being an integral part of a story. That goes for any story, even parts of a story. One scene from a movie won’t work if there isn’t tension in it. Tension, menace, whatever you wanna call it is the tie that binds any good story together. Without tension there is no point in watching, reading, or listening to anything.
In Cathedral Carver does a great job of following his own advice. This is also a good example of the fact that tension, or menace can be portrayed in many different ways, it doesn’t have to be a fight or something violent between two people. By being inside of the husbands head the whole time we see the tension that he has in himself over his own anxieties about meeting Robert. This makes you tense while you read the story because you never know if he is going to do something stupid or embarrassing to himself or his wife, regarding Robert’s blindness. It’s like watching NASCAR, the whole story you are waiting for a crash and that makes it entertaining (although I found this more entertaining then a NASCAR race!). The more they drink the more you expect something bad to happen, then when he gets Robert high for the first time you think “there’s no way this is going to end good!”
What I liked about this story though is the fact that it does end good. Even though you expect it to go bad at some point, it never does, and I think even that is part of the tension. The unexpected ending is always a source of tension. This is a great short story that definitely follows the authors own advice. It’s also kind of funny to think that just a short story about an old family friend, who is blind, could bring so much tension. It’s also easy to relate to, most of us have been in the position of spending time with someone we don’t know, drinking too much, smoking weed and most of the time things don’t end as well as they did for the husband and Robert. This is great use of normal everyday things, in normal everyday circumstances being used to create a source of tension.
