The Useless Train Ride (Cathedral)

The Compartment

I am finally seeing Carver’s patterns in each short story. I feel that it is in each ending that he keeps the reader wondering, so what next?
“ I gave you life ,and I can take it back.”(p. 48) .This quote is harsh, a father saying that to his son. This short story starts out with a fight of Myers his son and his son’s mother. In the description it seems like a rough, crazy family fight. It separates them and changes them. I could not imagine hearing those words from my father and to top it off having to be getting beaten at the same time. It really makes me wonder what kind of person is Myers? This is a family that does not keep in touch for eight years, not a call, not a post card. How could that even be normal? I know that there are families that don’t keep in touch, but eight years is such a long time. Something really bad must have happened to lead to such a family fight and break a family up like Myers family was separated.
“He stayed awake after that and began to think of the meeting with his son, which was now only a few hours away. How would he act when he saw the boy at the station? Should he embrace him? He felt uncomfortable with that prospect. Or should he merely offer his hand, smile as if these eight years had never occurred, and then pat the boy on the shoulder?” (p.49). I like this quote a lot because it seems so real. Everything Myers is saying is typical. When you haven’t seen a person for a very long time you really do not know how to act in the moment, and especially thinking about how you will embrace that person makes things even worse. Those situations are tough, but I don’t think that Myer made the right decision of not even seeing his son. I don’t know exactly what happened, but avoiding a situation or a problem is not going to fix or solve anything. And that is what Myer did. Myer avoided the risky unpredictable situation moment of seeing his son. Things could have changed. Things could have been fixed, but Myers decided to avoid it.