Cathedral Characters

The narrator is a bit of a bad boy. That's why antihero is a word that comes up frequently in connection with him. The unnamed narrator of "Cathedral" drinks lots of scotch and smokes marijuana. He...

Kindness, sincerity, and openness seem like significant character traits of the narrator's wife. Since she sleeps through much of the present action of the story, the background information the nar...

Robert seems like a great guy, someone who it would be a pleasure to know. This isn't necessarily apparent until the story is fully unraveled. Initially, Robert is a mysterious figure to the narrat...

Beulah is Robert's late wife. She recently died of cancer, and her family lives in Connecticut. She met Robert the same way the narrator's wife did, by answering an ad for work, and accepting a job...

The officer was the "childhood sweetheart" (1.4) of the narrator's wife and her first husband. The narrator is jealous of him, and perhaps a little angry with him, too. We sense some hostility in t...