Compare And Contrast The Shabbat And The Cathedral

Fear is an emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous and it can cause pain, or become a threat. When faced with fear of the unknown, it causes people to see what they want to see. In the short stories The Shabbat by Marjane Satrapi and the Cathedral by Raymond Carver the characters are faced with their fears and it changes their perception of reality and they see what they want to see.

The Shabbat is a chapter in the chronicles Persepolis that tells the story of a young girl living in Iraqi with her family. The Shabbat is told in first person narration by author, Marjane Satrapi who goes by Marji in the story. She takes readers through her eyes to show family and society life during the Iranian war; where at the end

of the story her next door neighbors die after their home is bombed. Fear is acknowledged throughout the story as the Iranian war progresses by Marji and her family. They all deal with their emotions of fear differently and their perception of reality makes them view the country’s current situation indifferently. Readers can take Marji and her family response to the war as a defense mechanism to dilute the fact that death is around every corner and can strike at any given time of the day.
Marji’s parents fear distorts their reality and they believe that everything is going to be fine and there is no need to seek safety. The side effects of their fear do not allow them to give Marji the comfort that she is seeking so she can truly feel safe. Marji is not as naïve as her parents and has moments in the story where she is forced to face the truth and confront her fears, but then led astray to a false conception to not worry about anything.
In the beginning of The Shabbat the family is sitting around with another family discussing the war and what they believe to be “rumors” but rather than take the information and plan for safety Marji states “we Iranians are Olympic champions when it comes to gossip.” Her father then replies “she’s right.

We love to exaggerate.” Readers can speculate that Marji has learned how to react to her fears about the war by changing her perspective of the situation from her parent’s nonchalant attitude. The following panel is the first opportunity in the story to view how Marji and her parents react when they are confronted with their fears of death. The panel begins with scuds which are Iraq’s missiles and warning sirens heard in the distance. Marji is able to feel her fears and accept the circumstances of her world. She is able to confront her fears and ask her father “we’re not going to the basement?” Marji turns to her father for assurance and he replies “it wouldn’t make any difference” to what they do, which gives Marji no affirmation and heightens her fears. Marji’s father fears allows him to believe that there is no safe place go and they are just going to die. In the same panel, “I don’t want to die” Marji says after a big “boom” is heard. Marji’s mother just hugs her and says “you won’t dear. I promise you!” The mother’s fear allows her to become in denial believing that everything is fine tries to stay oblivious to her

surroundings.
Cathedral by Raymond Carver is also a short story told in first person narration. The narrator who does not reveal his name tells the story about his wife’s blind friend, Robert who is coming to visit and stay the night. Throughout the story the narrator’s expresses his many negative views about Robert’s visual impairment even before meeting him. He goes on to describe the history of Robert and his wife. In the end it turns out to be an eye-opening experience for the narrator after meeting Robert. The fear for the narrator is the emotional response that Robert ignites in his wife that he must attend to. The narrator’s unknown is he does not understand how his wife can have feelings for someone that cannot see her outer beauty. Rather than the narrator understanding or seeing where his wife’s feelings for Robert are stemming from the narrator makes Robert an enemy and pushes his wife away with his stereotypical preconceptions.
The narrator presents with a fear of emotions. This is seen in several instances when he is telling a story and there is a moment where he can sympathize with his wife and he immediately changes his tone and brings the story back to him and his closed minded views. An example of this is when he speaks about his wife attempting suicide and stops to talk about whether he should say her ex-husband’s name. “But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up. Her officer--why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want? --came home from somewhere, found her, and called the ambulance.” The narrators fear of emotion can also be evident in his consistent drinking and drug use. Before every action in the story, a drink is prepared. Is he trying to numb, suppress, or avoid certain feelings? Perhaps becoming in tune with his wife emotional needs would mean that he would have to face his emotional needs. The narrator shows us that he can quickly relate to anger and misery without diverting to another thought.
The narrator gives readers a history of his wife’s life and there is a certain vulnerability about her. She wants a man that is able to listen to her and love her. Robert throughout the narrator’s banter appears to be the only man acknowledging her needs. The narrator continues “In time, she put it all on a tape and sent the tape to the blind man……. Next to writing a poem every year, I think it was her chief means of recreation.” The narrator expresses that he thinks his wife’s poetry and the tapes where she is sharing her intimate life details with Robert is nothing but recreation activity. We see that she is seeking intimacy and her husband is not making the emotional connection to provide that. The narrator sees Robert as a threat because Robert can do something that he has not been able to do with his wife since they met and that is share emotions. The narrator continuously asks readers and his wife how Robert is able to connect with any women without seeing their physical beauty and how is any women able to love Robert and he cannot see them. The real question the narrator is trying to ask is how can Robert feel emotions as a blind man and he can’t feel anything as a seeing man.
In closing fear is a strong emotion that can cause people to see what they want to see. This response due to their fear can be perceived as one’s defense mechanism. In The Shabbat and Cathedral, the narrators and the characters were both faced with their fears and each response although different was a result of the mind’s coping mechanism to protect them from feeling pain, despair or accepting what they believe is their fate.
In The Shabbat the fear is death and Marji and her family sees the reality of things differently. The father faces the fear of his reality as an acceptance of fate. He believes that if death is going to happen to there is nothing they can do but accept it. Marji’s mother fears allows her to believe that everything is fine and the war is not happening around her and she tries to instill this distortion of reality into Marji. Marji on the other hand shows throughout the story that she is able to face her fears and clearly see the reality of her circumstances. As with any impressionable young person she looks to her parent for guidance and safety, but they cannot provide either because they themselves are battling emotions of fear. She tries hard emulate her parent’s attitude and suppresses her fears and distorts her reality to make believe that death is not close. Marji continues with a life goes on attitude until her neighbor’s house is hit by a bomb and they all perish. Marji’s mother continues to instill in Marji that everything is ok until Marji sees her friend’s bracelet under the rubble still attached to the young girl’s wrist. The story ends there with the final panel in black and Marji’s written feelings “no scream in the world could have reueved my suffering and my anger.” Ironically throughout The Shabbat Marji and her parents were trying to control their fears in different ways only to have them come face to face with death at the end.
In Cathedral the narrator’s fear is his own emotions.

He is afraid to let go, feel and connect with anyone. The narrator does not share much about himself causing readers to just interpret his closed minded views as jealousy. At a closer look it is fear that drives him out of touch with reality viewing Robert as a threat. It is fear that enables him to identify with anger and continuously makes his wife upset. The wife says to him at one point ‘"Are you crazy?" my wife said. "Have you just flipped or something?" She picked up a potato. I saw it hit the floor, then roll under the stove. "What's wrong with you?" she said. “Are you drunk?”’ This scene in Cathedral is where readers can conclude the disconnect from reality and his wife. We are also made aware that the wife recognizes there is an underlining substance abuse issue. The jealousy, insecurity, and communication barrier are all side effects of his emotional fear. These side effects distort his reality allowing him to feel justified in his way of thinking. In response to his wife emotional outburst of frustration the narrator answers ‘"I'm just asking," I said. Right then my wife filled me in with more detail than I cared to know. I made a drink and sat at the kitchen table to listen.’’ He is now confronted yet again with a story filled with emotion and he immediately shut down with anger insisting he doesn’t care and grabs a drink as though to add an extra pad of defense in case any emotions are felt. At the end of

Cathedral there is a bond between both men. The narrator is able to confront his fear and allow himself to feel an emotion, coincidently with the help of Robert. “He found my hand, the hand with the pen” the narrator says “He closed his hand over my hand.” It was as though Robert understood that the narrator needed to be guided to face his fears.