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Comparing Two Dramatic Comedies: Raymond Carver’s Cathedral and Guy de Maupassant’s The Jewelry

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A reader looking for a story where there is drama, but still humor will be satisfied with Raymond Carver’s Cathedral and Guy de Maupassant’s The Jewelry. Both have some form of wit developed through a plot structure that appeals to the most common of people. Carver presents a man who is so narrow-minded that he is unable to grasp the idea of knowing a person who is blind. Maupassant creates a story of a man who is blind to the fact of the true actions of his wife and the lies she construed during their marriage. In these two stories the protagonists go through self-discovery, but each experience it in different ways. As such, the plot structures that form the infrastructure of these two tales allow the reader to see that although the two …show more content…

In Guy de Maupassant’s The Jewelry, the protagonist, M. Lantin, marries a poor girl who gains an obsession with theater and fake jewelry after her husband suggests she go with fellow wives. The man goes into a depression after his wife, Madame Lantin, dies from pneumonia. Unable to understand how his wife managed to make sure all the bills were paid and still buy more fake jewelry, Lantin decided to pawn off her fake jewelry. Surprisingly, the jeweler revealed to Lantin that the jewelry his wife admitted to be fake was actually real and really expensive. The jeweler recommended that Lantin seek out another jewelry store for a better deal. Little did Lantin know that he would stumble upon the jewelry store where his wife actually purchased the stock of jewelry she had left behind. He was able to sell all of her jewelry and collect a vast amount of money from it. The man began to squander his money and had quit his job. Lantin ended up remarrying a woman who he saw as “the most upright of spouses” (Par. 7). He was really miserable with his new wife. Lantin’s decision to find a wife who he did not have to doubt her fidelity led to his misery.
Now, the details of these two stories allows for readers to be able to find entertainment within these pieces of literature. Readers can picture what type of person each of the protagonists was in these two stories. Readers would relate the behavior of the main character of Cathedral to that of a

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