Carefully Popping An Ear And A Bottle Of Champagne (Cathedral)

Careful

Lloyd is a very careless person who lives his life carelessly. Lloyd reminds me a lot of Mersault. They just don’t care. The story starts out with Lloyd and Inez separating. Did Inez want this separation for having such a careless husband? I noticed that Lloyd with any problem he had, he just had no way to face his problem. He did not know how to face life. Maybe he was scared of solving problems and changing his life. Just the perfect example would be his ear problem. His ear is plugged, he has trouble hearing, and he doesn’t care for this. It’s his health his hearing. He just tries to pop his ear always just the way he is always popping open his champagne bottle. Just by popping and trying to unplug his ears he thinks he is going to fix his problem. “He couldn’t hear anything clearly, and he seemed to have lost his sense of balance, his equilibrium, in the process.” (p.113). Lloyd lived a very unstable life. I couldn’t imagine knowing someone who just watches TV and drinks cheap champagne all day. And not to forget always trying to get his ear to hear. What a life! I don’t like Lloyd I think he is useless. When Inez goes to visit him he does have trouble hearing some stuff that she says, but he is basically at the point that he only hears what he wants to hear. She should just stay away from him and be happy that she got rid of him.
At the end the only thing popping was his champagne bottle, because hes ear went bak to being unplugged again. He could hear again, so he did not have anymore problems to deal with. He could go back to hi boring useless life of drinking and watching TV. The only thing worrying him, being that his ears can get plugged again. I understand the title being “Careful” with the story, because Lloyd has to do many things carefully. He has to be careful getting out of bed, because his roof is so low. He has to be careful with his ear problem.
I have noticed now that Carver writes a lot about life. He writes about honest everyday situations. He seems to like to write about Alcoholics and amusing moments, but with a story or ending that goes nowhere.