Best of the Week: Cathedral

After reading Cathedral, I became more and more convinced that it is the greatest short story I have ever read which is not really saying much since I don't read them often. However, I think that it is a great story and magnificently written. We had some really great discussions in class and it's tough to be specific about the "best of the week" but, I'm going to focus on the form in Cathedral. The author begins by having the narrator use short, brusque sentences to convey his close-mindedness. Later on, after the blind man, Robert, arrives and the narrator has his mind opened, the sentences become lengthy and more in depth. At the end of the story, the narrator returns to his short sentences but this time, the author uses them to show that the narrator's epiphany is unexplainable and he is at a loss for words. The last line is the perfect ending to emphasize that point.

We have talked about how form is content the whole year but this is the first time that I really get it. Seeing it in action like this has really inspired me to have more ideas about how to write my own short story and convey emotion to my reader outside of the actual words themselves. I'm very excited to get my story fragment back and begin writing the whole thing.