Short Stories

Looking more closely at your surroundings and appreciating them is a common theme in the two short stories, The Cathedral and Everyday Use.  In The Cathedral, the protagonist is a man who lives through the same routine everyday.  Then one day, a blind man, his wife's friend, comes to visit and stay with them and he opens him up to a whole new world.  While they were watching television the blind man asked him to draw a cathedral, because he was not able to describe it to him in words.  As they were drawing the blind man told him to close his eyes and still he continued to draw.  It was at this moment that he realized the importance of his surroundings.  A blind man was more aware of what he couldn't see than he was, and he could see.  It represents the importance of sight and the appreciation of our surroundings. 

Similarly in Everyday Use, it represents the importance of our heritage and culture and questions what it really is.  The story is about a young girl, Dee, who goes off to college and seems to find her African heritage.  She changed her clothes, her name and her beliefs.  When she comes back home, her family questions it and tries to follow along but it is too much.  For one thing she did not appreciate where they lived or what they had until she went through this radical change.  Her family sees a new person and it makes the reader think does heritage and culture come from family origins all the way back to our ancestors, or does it come from the place where you are raised.