Best of Week: The Power of One Word

While talking about the short story "Cathedral" in English class on Friday, we touched on many interesting aspects of short stories. One of the most prominent ones that I felt really made an impact on me was the title. Yes- just the title. It sounds like it's really not a big deal, the title, just something that's there just because every story needs a title. I know that I'm not the only one who typically overlooks the title and sometimes just completely disregards it- so this piece of insight was really beneficial to me.

First off, the word "cathedral" itself has specific connotations. As we discussed in class, it is the principal church of a diocese [very grand, intricate, and large] with which the bishop is officially associated. It has several associations, including religion, grandness, faith, etc. So, we can already get a glimpse at what may literally or figuratively happen in the story, just by looking at the title. Because the title is not just there for no reason, it gives a snapshot into the most significant part of the story.

As we started to look into the ending of the story where the narrator first mentions the cathedrals, we see a lot of parallels between the title and the actual story. For one, they're actually talking about, watching, and drawing cathedrals. That would be the more literal aspect of it and could easily be figured out by the reader without over-thinking it. But, we also starting talking about the more figurative connection between the title and the story. I felt like we started to get into this in English class, which sparked my thinking about it, so I'm sure we're going to discuss this even more tomorrow in class.

Thinking about the connotations about the word "cathedral", in class, we mentioned that it has connotations related to religion, faith, etc. The narrator, in the story, tells Robert that he has a hard time believing in and committing to religion. As they start drawing the cathedrals though, he is instructed by Robert to close his eyes and keep drawing, as if he's "blind". Our narrator had thought that this would be extremely difficult and became frustrated and skeptical, but soon embraced the feeling of having this blindness and remarked that it was "really something" to feel like he "was not inside anything". To that, we can see a parallel between the title "Cathedral" and this experience. We can connect it and say that what the narrator experienced right there was faith and religion. We would say that Robert was the priest and the narrator was the person that is religious. In this moment, the narrator is realizing that though he can see fine, he is blind to faith.

Talking about the power of just one word really sparked this insight for me and made me appreciate the aspects of a story that may seem so simple that I should just skip past them. Just by acknowledging the title and giving it a bit of thought, it spurred all of this insight and thought in my mind. So it was really beneficial for me to see all of these little details in short stories that though seemingly simple, have very profound impacts upon the story. Knowing this will really enrich my experiences of reading any type of story and will help me come to more complex conclusions and parallels.