Too Much ToTolerate! (Cathedral)

Preservation

“ My god , a person couldn’t live the whole rest of his life in bed, or else on the sofa.” (p.38) how is it that sandy can tolerate living and being married to such a bum. I respect Sandy for being strong and being the worker, so basically making her the head of the family, but as soon as their refrigerator breaks I think that, that is the moment Sandy realizes that everything is broken.

“ Hell, yes. We need one, don’t we? We can’t get along without one.”(p. 41). This quote caught my attention because Sandy knows that he broken fridge was a sign or that it could have been one. It breaks all of a sudden, and she is asking her looser husband what to do about it and he insists on getting a cooler. She knows that if her fridge problem is not fixed than her marriage life will be without a future. How can a person manage to live with someone who watches T.V all day and sleeps on the sofa all day. What makes me very mad about Sandy’s character is that he is a bum, he doesn’t do anything and when the fridge breaks he reminds Sandy that he does not have a job and that it will not be easy to get a new one. That is selfish. Sandy should have left that man the day he lost his job threw himself on the couch, took his shoes off and chilled out.

Carver has a weird way of ending his stories, its almost like you have to dig and look for the message made. I like his writing and I liked this short story a lot because it is very descriptive and almost real. It was so easy to picture every scene in my mind, even the last sentence. I could see that puddle of water next to his feet, but what did it mean?