Diego Molina Ochoa

December 4, 2016,

Cathedral and Ten Little Indians Final Paper: How do Carver’s and Alexie’s short

stories unravel stereotypes?

Modern literature is held together by cliché narratives, an endless series of hero

journeys, with their rising action, climax, and denouement. The established narrative lens

is well worn, suspense and twists following similar trends, protagonists caught in

stereotypical character arcs. Standard literature tends to keep to predictable patterns.

Cathedral and Ten Little Indians are not standard literature - these short story collections

turn classic narrative assumptions on their heads, with characters that: abandon the role of

classic heroes and protagonists, are short sighted, learn little from their mistakes, and are

painfully human and familiar. By going against narrative norms, Alexie and Carver

overturn expectations for how characters must act, and in doing so, break classic

stereotypes that typically define characters.

The characters that Raymond Carver creates contrast greatly with those of

Sherman Alexie. Carver draws inspiration from lower income white American families,

while Alexie’s characters are typically drawn from minorities of Native American

heritage. For all their differences, these characters do share the identity of the

disenfranchised; people cast off by the rest of society and kept on the fringes.

Immediately, the assumed narratives appear as stories of underdogs up against the world,

struggling with addiction, poverty, and racism. However, Alexie and Carver quickly

deviate from the assumed storylines in their own unique way.

The stories in Cathedral are much like Carver’s writing style - short and blunt.

Carver wastes little time in romanticizing the dire conditions of his characters, forcing the

raw intensity of their misfortune into the forefront. In Preservation, the main character
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December 4, 2016,

“…[Sandy’s husband] had been on the sofa ever since he’d been terminated three months

ago”(Carver, Pg.35), a depressing establishing shot that leaves little to interpretation. The

classic narrative arc would see a path established clearly before the characters, a chance

for redemption and recovery that could either end joyfully or tragically, depending on the

moral of the story. No such path reveals itself in Preservation as Sandy attempts to find

normalcy, the feeling of decay and depression ever present, sapping any possible

narrative growth from the story. What is left is a broken fridge, greasy pork chops, and a

husband without any will.

In most of his short stories, Carver resists any attempt for a narrative arc to

become established, severely limiting any progress that his characters can make in

overcoming their flaws. In the absence of such handholding narratives, Carver replaces

the traditional hero journey with blind wandering. Carver’s characters seem perpetually

lost, trapped in loops of addiction, depression, and dependence. Without a path to follow,

his characters stumble around, wallowing in self-pity like Sandy’s husband doomed to

decay on his couch. In The Compartment, Carver goes to the literal end of the spectrum

by having the main character, Myer, who is on a journey to reconnect with his long

estranged son, wander in confusion through train cars as he tries to figure out his

destination:

Myers got up and opened the door. He went to the end of the corridor, where the

cars were coupled together. He didn’t know why they had stopped. Maybe

something was wrong. He moved to the window. But all he could see was an

intricate system of tracks where trains were being made up, cars taken off or

switched from one train to another. He stepped back from the window. The sign
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December 4, 2016,

on the door to the next car said, Poussez. Myers struck the sign with his fist, and

the door slid open. He was in the second-class car again. He passed along a row of

compartments filled with people settling down, as if making ready for a long trip.

He needs to find out form someone where this train was going. (Carver 57)

Carver’s lack of narrative structure makes even the worst of tragic stories more

merciful, for at least tragic heroes are pushed towards an eventual end, while Carver’s

characters are trapped in a purgatory of unhappiness.

If Carver is contrarian in his stance towards classical narrative structures, then

Alexie is satirical. Ten Little Indians is embellished with a more colorful writing style

compared to Cathedral, with sharp humor and racial, social, and sexual bluntness that

would make J.D. Salinger blush. His writing is welcoming and appealing, and even offers

hints of comfortable narratives and interesting character growth. His short story Can I get

A Witness starts off innocently enough, a middle aged mother getting lunch at Good

Food, making humorous sarcastic remarks of her life and surroundings. Just as the

narrative begins to get off the ground and the protagonist seems set to begin her journey

of self-realization, “…a small and dark man stepped inside, shouted in a foreign

language, and detonated the bomb he had taped to his chest”(Alexie 71). In an instant, the

classic narrative is ripped to pieces, and what follows is an utterly bizarre compilation of

dramatic rants and awkward character interactions.

The critical point in Alexie’s writing is that the narrative arc still exists. The

characters in Can I Get A Witness, the middle aged mother who survives the bombing and

the divorced man who rescues her, are pushed down a path of self-discovery by the

explosion. However, the development is far from what is expected in a classic character
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arc with the woman cursing her marriage and outlining the positive side of 9/11, and the

man recognizing his pathetic nature and becoming fearful because of it. At the point

when the character’s growth and development should be complete, they are instead left

broken and disturbed.

Alexie messes with the assumptions of classic narrative structure by leading his

stories to developments that baffle traditional expectations. In the short story What you

Pawn I Will Redeem, the main character is on a quest to win back his grandmother’s

pow-wow regalia, but only ends up aimlessly wandering throughout Seattle, vision

blurred with alcohol, with every success, act of charity and stroke of luck squandered.

Traditionally, what should be expected is the utter failure of his quest, to drive home the

tragic nature of his shortsightedness, but instead, thanks to a single act of kindness, he

wins back his grandmother’s regalia. The result is a short story that pulls the rug from

under the simplicity of a typical narrative, becoming something subtle and beautiful.

Carver and Alexie’s rebellion against established narrative norms is their way of

escaping the cliché of the hero. The classic literary hero is an idealized character, able to

recover from the worst, recognize their flaws, and ultimately rise above them and achieve

some level of perfection. Such heroes can be inspirational, but are artificial, lacking the

unresolved issues and deep-seated flaws that a full-fledged person has. Cathedral and Ten

Little Indians present their characters with harsh realities, and they respond to those

realities realistically.

Carver’s simple writing style betrays the fact that his short stories are filled with

emotion. Sandy in Preservation is the very picture of desperation, struggling to drag her

husband off the couch, while Myer’s in The Compartment is bursting with confusion,
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December 4, 2016,

frustration, and apathy. The emphasis on the ugly emotions and flaws these characters

carry is critical in their development as complex individuals. In A Small Good Thing, the

main characters Ann and Howard are dealt a vicious blow when their son is hit by a car

and eventually dies. There is no miraculous recovery, no surge of family love or moving

on. There is merely a recognition that “…He’s gone. He’s gone and now we’ll have to get

used to that. To being along”(Caver 82), a heart wrenching conclusion that underlies the

depths of the characters grief. They go from two dimensional puppets that disappear at

the end of the act to full fledged characters who will carry that suffering past the last page

of the story, and that suffering is what makes their development engaging, and

understandable.

The assumptions of a classic narrative can create stereotypes on the proper way

characters should respond to hardship, grief, and pain. These are actions that are seen as

courageous, wise, and correct, with the alternative choices being strange and, therefore,

wrong. Alexie uses his non-standard narratives to drag those assumptions into the open,

and question their universal validity. The savage rant of the mother in Can I Get a

Witness is disturbing and not at all politically correct, but is necessary in allowing her and

the male divorcee to realize the flaws in their lives and recognize the things that are

causing unhappiness in them. In Alexie’s story Do Not Go Gently, a mother and father

face of against Mr. Grief as their baby clings desperately to life, channeling the power of

song, passion, and a fifteen inch black vibrator named Chocolate Thunder:

Maybe it was blasphemous, and maybe it was stupid and useless, but we all were

sick and tired of waiting for our babies to die. We wanted our babies to live, and

we were ready to try anything to help them live. Maybe some people can get by
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with quiet prayer, but I wanted to shout and scream and vibrate. So did plenty of

other fathers and mothers in that sickroom. (Alexie 100)

The image of grown men and women screaming and singing while waving a

massive vibrator over their dying babies is indeed absurd, and from a classical narrative

view, completely unacceptable. Yet there is raw joy, energy, and hope in this scene, with

fathers and mothers pouring their hearts out to wish their children back to life. It is a

powerful moment, challenging the stereotypes of what a protagonist must do, establishing

a new narrative lens that is no less inspiring.

Cathedral and Ten Little Indians give us stories without happy endings, without

resolution, with characters that descend into madness and remain trapped in depression.

But these are also stories that are understandable, that are not reduced into a bare bones

bundle of morals and clichés, but instead embrace the messy complexity of reality. The

actions of the characters are not limited by narrative structure, and thus are powerful and

human. They act the way normal people do in the face of misfortune, with all the rage,

confusion and grief that is beautifully flawed.