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Cathedral by raymond carver explained
Cathedral by raymond carver explained
Cathedral by raymond carver analysis summary
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Narrator’s Blindness Do you think vision is everything in life? Many people find themselves superior to others who lack the ability to see this wonderful world. As portrayed in the short fiction story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, a person needs more than sight to become complete in life. Carver tells story from the narrator’s view where the narrator views himself perfectly fine with no physical disabilities. However, when he interacted with a blind man, who comes in his life as a teacher, he realize about his weakness to look deeper. This story takes place one night in New York, where a blind friend of the narrator’s wife, Robert came to visit. Upon staying in the narrator’s house, Robert opens his eyes and teaches him a good life lesson. …show more content…
Although the narrator in the story “Cathedral” able to see the world and Robert can’t, his spiritual blindness and lack of feelings makes him blinder than Robert. Even though the narrator lives a married life, he fails to understand his wife’s feelings that are required in strong relationships. The way narrator describes the situations that happened in his wife’s life, we can tell how narrator lacks feelings. When he describes his wife’s difficult situation when she was in hospital, he said, “But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up” (Carver 261). This comment by the narrator shows us that he has no feeling towards his wife. Also, the narrator tell us how inspiring the poems was that his wife wrote about her important experience in life. Narrator said, “I admit it’s not the first thing I reach for when I picked up something to read” (261). …show more content…
Even though Robert lacks the ability to see the physical world, he has ability to engage with others with his benevolent nature. Robert knows the importance of love and how to treat his beloved. When his wife was in hospital, he “sits beside the bed and holds on her hand” (262). He lived with her for eight inseparable eight and had a strong bond with her. He loved his beloved that much that he don’t even want her to leave him. Robert also good relationship with people that interact in his life. The lack of vision never stop him to continue forward in his life. Narrator mention that “Robert had done little of everything, it seemed, a regular blind jack –of –all –trades” (264). Robert had done much with his life and gain as much as possible from every moment of life. Indeed, Robert’s willingness to learn everything in detail apart him from narrator. He wants to learn something from every event encountered in his life. Even when narrator ask Robert what he wants to watch on television, he said “whatever you want to watch is okay. I’m always learning. Learning never ends”
“There's none so blind as those who will not listen.” – Neil Gilman. The short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is about a man full of ignorance and insecurity. This tale is written in the first-person view of a husband,” Bub”, who is incapable of having a relationship with anyone. He is said to have no friends. As the story progresses he is ironically being able to see the error in his ways when his wife’s friend Robert, who is blind and makes a legitimate connection with him. In the end, Bub faces one central problem which becomes more apparent as the story continues until he has an epiphany which cured his blindness.
In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator, Bub, is as metaphorically blind as his guest, Robert, is literally blind. Bub has many unwarranted misconceptions about life, blind people in particular. He also has many insecurities that prevent him from getting too close to people. Through his interaction with Robert, Bub is able to open his mind and let go of his self-doubt for a moment and see the world in a different light.
In the story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, the main character, goes through a major personal transformation. At the beginning of the story, his opinions of others are filled with stereotypes, discrimination and prejudice. Through interaction with his wife's blind friend Robert, his attitude and outlook on life changes. Although at first he seemed afraid to associate with a blind man, Robert's outgoing personality left him with virtually no choice. During Robert's visit, he proved to be a normal man, and showed the speaker that by closing his eyes, he could open his mind.
The narrator in Raymond Carver’s "Cathedral" is not a particularly sensitive man. I might describe him as self-centered, superficial, and egotistical. And while his actions certainly speak to these points, it is his misunderstanding of the people and the relationships presented to him in this story which show most clearly his tragic flaw: while Robert is physically blind, it is the narrator who cannot clearly see the world around him.
Blindness in Raymond Carver's Cathedral Blindness creates a world of obscurity only to be overcome with guidance from someone willing to become intimate with the blind. Equally true, the perceptions of blindness can only be overcome when the blind allow intimacy with the sighted. Raymond Carver, with his short story Cathedral, illustrates this point through the eyes of a man who will be spending an evening with a blind man, Robert, for the first time. Not only does this man not know Robert, but his being blind, "bothered" (Carver 98) him.
...ry there are many instances in which the narrator seems to dislike Robert, in which case it is because he is “blind”. Not only is he blinded in the way that he cannot understand Robert, but it leads him to believe that Robert is not human at all because of his disability that he possess. The narrator develops with the aid of Robert, to see Robert as an actual human being. Raymond Carver gives the narrator a transformation through characterization as well as the aid of Robert to show his development and progression throughout the story.
Raymond Carver, in his short story Cathedral uses a first-person narrator, whose point of view is very much limited and flawed. The narrator in Cathedral has full use of all his senses, unlike the blind man, Robert, who is introduced very early in the story. When comparing the two again, however, Robert is the character that is open to new ideas and willing to experience the joys of life, while the narrator limits himself due to his close-minded thinking. It brings up the question, who is truly blind in the story? Is it a physical ailment or a mental block? The narrator is never given a name in the story, making him the most impersonal character in the story. This also adds to the fact that the narrator is highly ignorant about his surroundings and has a one-sided, self-absorbed view of the world. The perception of the narrator leaves much to be inferred in many points in the story, and at first, it seems pointless to have such a closed off character and the one telling his point of view. I would like to hear the story from the wife’s point of view or Robert’s. Ultimately, however, the limited point of view of the narrator shows where the true ignorance in the world lies.
“I have learned the hard way to mind my business, without judging who people are and what they do. I am more troubled by the lack of space being provided for the truth to unfold. Humans cannot seem to wait for or honor the truth. Instead, we make it up based on who we believe people should or should not be,”Iyanla Vanzant. When reading “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver the blind Robert was constantly judged by the husband. This story is about a blind man visited his old friend the wife. The husband did not want to be around the man because he was blind. The husband put a channel on the tv and it starting talking about cathedrals. Robert the blind man asked the husband to describe a Cathedral he didn’t know how to describe the beauty of a Cathedral.
In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, a blind man named Robert help Bub, a person unable to understand or place the feelings of others in front of his own , open his eyes and realize how to consider others feelings. In the story, Robert comes to to visit Bub’s wife after his wife passes away. Bub is not looking forward to his encounter with Robert. As the story progresses, Bub is forced to interact with Robert in ways that seem foreign to him. Bub’s difference interactions with Robert builds up to the both of them drawing a cathedral together, which leads to Bub being changed and him placing Roberts points of view ahead of his own.
The unnamed narrator of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” poses as an unreliable narrator for his unaccepting nature towards blind people along with his ignorant perception of many realities in his life that Carver presents for the reader to take into question. The narrator holds prejudice against Robert, a blind man whom the narrator’s wife worked with ten years earlier and eventually befriends. Unperceptive to many of the actualities in his own life, the narrator paints an inaccurate picture of Robert that he will soon find to be far from the truth.
However, the most unfortunate of them is the psychological blindness. This is the kind of blindness in which a person has physical sight but most times lack psychological sight on things that take place around them. In Raymond Carver’s short story, “Cathedral”, the narrator’s wife used to work for a blind man named Robert, whose wife has recently passed on and as a result of that he will be coming to spend some time with the narrator and his wife at their home. The narrator isn’t very enthused about his visit. He believes blind people are helpless and are never happy. The narrator explains his understanding of blindness, “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed” (Carver 78). Due to his view of blind people he expects Robert to be the exact but he is surprised when he realises that he the opposite and eventually learns a valuable lesson from him.
Raymond Carver’s, “Cathedral,” opens with an unnamed narrator stating that his wife’s blind friend, Robert, will be visiting their house. Having never been around a sightless man before, the narrator is discontented about Robert’s visit, for he is unsure how to entertain him. He confesses that his knowledge about blindness comes only from watching movies and in those “the blind move slowly and never laugh” (Carver, 123). The narrator explains that his wife worked for Robert ten years earlier and has not seen him since. During those ten years, however, they have been in contact via exchang...
In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the husband's view of blind men is changed when he encounters his wife's long time friend, Robert. His narrow minded views and prejudice thoughts of one stereotype are altered by a single experience he has with Robert. The husband is changed when he thinks he personally sees the blind man's world. Somehow, the blind man breaks through all of the husband's jealousy, incompetence for discernment, and prejudgments in a single moment of understanding.
In the story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, it tells of how a blind man is open to new experiences and how he views the world compared to the husband (narrator) who is blinded by the material things of life. The husband is given the gift of sight but the true gift comes from seeing the cathedral. At the beginning of the story, the husband’s outlook on others is filled with stereotypes, discrimination, insecurities and prejudice. After interacting with Robert, his wife's friend, his outlook begins to change significantly.
Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" depicted the interaction between a narrow minded husband, with a limited understanding of the world around him, and a blind visitor, named Robert, that proved to be the catalyst that dramatically changed the husband's view on the world, while they went from being strangers to becoming friends. In the beginning of the story, the husband disliked the concept of his wife bringing her blind friend over to stay since he never had met a blind person before and did not understand it. However, as the story progresses, the husband, through interaction and observation, begins to dispel his fears and misconceptions of Robert and his blindness. With the help of Robert, the husband gains a revelation that changed his view and opened his eyes to the world.