Raymond Carver Cathedral Analysis

Art in Different Forms

Edward Hopper and Raymond Carver are both very well-known and respected for their works. In “Cathedral” Raymond Carver uses minimalism to create the effect of guessing to the audience. Edward Hopper's painting A Room In New York can be easily compared and connected to Raymond Carver's short story “Cathedral”. Both Hopper and Carver use minimalism and realism, a similar idea, and a limited point of view in their works to create the overall effect of real life.

In A Room in New York portrays a man and a woman together but emotionally separate. Hopper did not try and jazz this up with anything to make the picture seem like a fantasy. He painted what was there and what would be seen in real life. Using realism to display the lack of emotion between the two. This was done so the audience can see

In Hoppers painting there is a man and a woman together in the same room. They are close, but the wife appears to be emotionally absent. She looks upset and they seem like they do not have a good connection or bond. In “Cathedral” the narrator and his wife do not have a typical or ideal kind of marriage. The narrator illuminates this when he says, “In my wife’s room, I looked around” (Cathedral). He does not say in our room. This shows that the wife and the narrator did not have a good marriage and that they were emotionally detached from each other. Another example of this is when the narrator says, “They talked of things that had happened to them- to them!- these past ten years. I waited in vain to hear my name on my wife’s sweet lips…” (Cathedral). If the husband was a significant part of her life she would have surely mentioned him to the blind man when she was filling him in on her life. The painting and the story both have the idea of a couple being emotionally distant and having a dysfunctional relationship. Both let the audience draw conclusions on what was going