75 pages • 2 hours read
Cathedral
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During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
“Feathers”
Reading Check
1. What type of animal is Joey?
2. What does Olla keep a plaster cast of in her house?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does the narrator respond after meeting Bud’s baby?
2. What wish does the narrator make at the end of his evening at Bud’s house?
“Chef’s House”
Reading Check
1. What does Edna begin wearing again during her summer near the ocean?
2. What does Chef inform Wes and Edna they must do?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What effect does their brief time together at Chef’s house have on the relationship of Wes and Edna?
“Preservation”
Reading Check
1. Which appliance in Sandy’s house has stopped working?
2. Where does Sandy’s husband spend almost all his time?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Where does Sandy plan to go shopping, and what memories does it bring back for her?
“The Compartment”
Reading Check
1. Who is Myers traveling to Strasbourg to meet?
2. What does Myers notice is missing from his coat pocket?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What prevents Myers from returning to his compartment after the train leaves the station?
Paired Resource
- This poem by Raymond Carver captures a bleary-eyed vision of happiness on a normal morning.
- This connects to the theme of Working-Class Dissatisfaction.
- What themes present in this short poem are also present in the stories of Cathedral?
- This biographical page from Peninsular College explains why Carver is known as “the American Chekhov.”
- The discussion of Carver’s early life connects to the theme Working-Class Dissatisfaction.
- What challenges did Carver overcome on his way to being recognized as an important writer?
“A Small, Good Thing”
Reading Check
1. What do Ann and Howard neglect to pick up?
2. Where is Ann when Howard receives the first upsetting phone call?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Franklin’s fate, and how does it foreshadow the remainder of the story?
2. How does the baker respond to learning about Ann and Howard’s tragedy?
“Vitamins”
Reading Check
1. What part of her body did Shelia injure in her drunken fall at the party?
2. How many dates does the narrator go on with Donna?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Where does the narrator meet Nelson, and where did Nelson just arrive on a plane from?
“Careful”
Reading Check
1. Where does Lloyd try to hide his champagne bottle?
2. What does Inez use in Lloyd’s ear to try to ease his problems?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Lloyd do when Inez leaves the apartment to get materials to help him, and what does this show about his condition?
2. How does Lloyd respond to realizing he has been drinking from a soiled glass?
“Where I’m Calling From”
Reading Check
1. What type of work did Roxy and J. P.’s family do?
2. Whom does the narrator try to contact from the drying-out facility?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does the narrator ask Roxy for when he meets her, and what is her response?
Paired Resource
“Alcohol, Emotion, and Tension in Raymond Carver’s Fiction”
- This excellent essay by a sophomore at Boston University analyzes the role of alcohol in Raymond Carver’s fiction while also providing an exemplar of student work. It includes explanatory notes from the writer and her professor.
- This article touches on the theme of Disengagement and Loneliness.
- Why do you think so many readers are drawn to a writer who specializes in working-class loneliness?
“The Train”
Reading Check
1. What article of clothing is the man in the train station missing?
2. How many people are waiting in the deserted station for the train to arrive?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does the point of view of the story change at the end, and whose perspective is the reader left with?
“Fever”
Reading Check
1. What is Carlyle’s profession?
2. What does Carlyle hire Mrs. Webster to do?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Mrs. Webster perform at her job, and how does it affect Carlyle’s life?
2. Who takes care of Carlyle when is he is ill, and what is her parting message to him?
“The Bridle”
Reading Check
1. Where does the Holits family come from?
2. What does Marge find in the apartment after Holits’s family moves out?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What stunt does Holits pull at the pool, and how does it end up for him?
“Cathedral”
Reading Check
1. What does the narrator’s wife write once or twice a year, “after something really important happened to her”?
2. What does the narrator bring back to the living room to draw on?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What do the narrator and Robert “watch” on television together, and what does this prompt the narrator to ask of Robert?
2. What do the two men do at the end of the story, and what is its effect on the narrator?
Paired Resource
“Our Stories Matter: Why We Need More Working-Class Voices in Quality Fiction”
- This resource from the Booker Prizes page explains why the voices of working-class writers across nationalities and cultures are vital in telling the authentic stories of real people.
- This connects to the theme Working-Class Dissatisfaction.
- Do you feel that the stories of Raymond Carver present a working-class view of the world that is otherwise missing from literary fiction? Discuss.
Recommended Next Reads
The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
- This collection of eight stories from the Canadian Nobel Prize winner shares the rich textures and themes of life and regret that made her fiction so resonant.
- Shared themes include Disengagement and Loneliness.
- Shared topics include short story collection, tragic accidents, and family dysfunction.
- The Love of a Good Woman on SuperSummary
- In this survival story of a man and his son, set in a post-apocalyptic world, McCarthy’s minimalism takes Carver’s style to its extreme.
- Shared themes include Disengagement and Loneliness.
- Shared topics include family relationships and survival.
- The Road on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
“Feathers”
Reading Check
1. A peacock
2. Her teeth
Short Answer
1. Wes is shocked at how “ugly” he finds the baby and has a hard time interacting with the child.
2. He wishes he would “never forget or otherwise let go of that evening.”
“Chef’s House”
Reading Check
1. Her wedding ring
2. Move
Short Answer
1. Wes and Edna have a brief but happy time together at Chef’s house, sharing domestic duties and living without alcohol.
“Preservation”
Reading Check
1. Her refrigerator
2. His couch
Short Answer
1. Sandy plans to go to an auction, which reminds her of the pleasant times she spent at auctions with her father.
“The Compartment”
Reading Check
1. His son
2. A watch
Short Answer
1. When Myers attempts to return to his compartment, he realizes with a start that his car, including all of his possessions, was uncoupled during the stop at the station and was replaced with another car full of strangers.
“A Small, Good Thing”
Reading Check
1. A cake
2. The hospital
Short Answer
1. Franklin dies as a result of his injuries, foreshadowing Scotty’s death.
2. The baker apologizes and invites the grieving family into the bakery for a communal meal of coffee and cinnamon rolls.
“Vitamins”
Reading Check
1. Her finger
2. One
Short Answer
1. The narrator and Nelson meet at the Off-Broadway. Nelson has just arrived from Vietnam.
“Careful”
Reading Check
1. The bathroom
2. Oil
Short Answer
1. While Inez is out, Lloyd goes to the bathroom to drink the champagne that he thinks he has hidden from her. This shows how out-of-control his drinking is.
2. Lloyd pours out the champagne and then resumes drinking from the bottle.
“Where I’m Calling From”
Reading Check
1. Chimney sweeping
2. His wife
Short Answer
1. The narrator asks her for a good luck kiss. She allows him to have it but tells him that she is no longer a chimney sweep.
“The Train”
Reading Check
1. His shoes
2. Three
Short Answer
1. In the final moments of the story, the point of view switches to the riders on the train—first, the passengers in general, and finally the train’s conductor.
“Fever”
Reading Check
1. Teacher
2. Babysit
Short Answer
1. Mrs. Webster is a terrific babysitter who handles her duties responsibly, and it relieves a lot of stress from Carlyle’s life.
2. Mrs. Webster takes care of him, and she tells him that he and Eileen are both good people who will be okay in the end.
“The Bridle”
Reading Check
1. Minnesota
2. A bridle
Short Answer
1. Holits jumps from the roof of the cabana but misses the pool and lands on the deck, injuring himself badly.
“Cathedral”
Reading Check
1. A poem
2. A paper bag
Short Answer
1. The two watch a television program about European cathedrals, which prompts the narrator to ask Robert if he knows what a cathedral looks like.
2. The two men draw a cathedral together, which causes the narrator to remark, “It was like nothing else in my life until now.”
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