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Literary Analysis of Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Analysis of Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Analysis of Cathedral by Raymond Carver
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Seeing Can Make You Blind
Being confronted to the unknown can be challenging and unpleasant. In his short story entitled “Cathedral” Raymond Carver portrays the journey of a man’s personal thought and understanding about life. Blindness is unfamiliar for the narrator, but when his wife decides to invite the blind man she has been corresponding with for several years to their house, he has no choice but being confronted with it. The journey of the main character in this short story reveals the difference between seeing and understanding.
This short story relates the experience of a sighted man receiving a blind man in his house. The narrator at the beginning of the story says that his wife's old blind friend from Seattle, who has just lost his
“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.
Carver tells the story in first person of a narrator married to his wife. Problems occur when she wants a friend of hers, an old blind man, to visit for a while because his wife has died. The narrator's wife used to work for the blind man in Seattle when the couple was financial insecure and needed extra money. The setting here is important, because Seattle is associated with rain, and rain symbolically represents a cleansing or change. This alludes to the drastic change in the narrator in the end of the story. The wife and blind man kept in touch over the years by sending each other tape recordings of their voices which the narrator refers it to being his wife's "chief means or recreation" (pg 581).
The narrator is quite obviously the character that Carver wants us to see as figuratively "blind." There is a stark contrast in the blind man and the husband from the beginning. The story starts out as the young husband anticipates the arrival of his wife's friend. The reader can sense his disgust and unwillingness to understand what it is like to be blind. He worries only for himself and how uncomfortable he will be in the situation. Mental emphasis is placed on the physical aspects of things and how the narrator cannot understand how the blind man could have a wife and never see her. "She could, if she wanted, wear green eye-shadow around one eye, a straight pin in her nostril, yellow slacks and purple shoes, no matter" (214).
Don’t judge a book by its cover. We have all heard this cliché at least once in our lifetime. But how many times have we ever followed through with this expression? The author Raymond Carver writes about an experience where a couple is visited by the wife’s acquaintance Robert, whose wife has recently passed. The fact that Robert is blind belittles him in the eyes of the narrator, causing tension and misjudgment. In “Cathedral”, Carver uses irony, point of view, and symbolism to show the difference between looking and truly seeing.
The narrator, his wife, and the blind man spend the evening talking, but eventually the wife falls asleep. The narrator is uncomfortable about being left alone with a blind man. There is something about cathedrals on TV and the blind man asks the narrator to describe what a cathedral looks like. The narrator only describes physical things and so the blind man decides that they should try drawing one instead. As they draw the blind man and the narrator connect and a transformation in the narrator?s character takes place.
You can never seem to know what's going on in another ones life, unless you put your feet in there shoes, so to judge, is simply ignorance. Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" is a story about how the narrator is uncomfortable with having his wife's blind friend, Robert, over. Roger has lost his wife, and to cope with her death, he planned to visit the narrator's wife. Without any knowledge whatsoever on how to act in accompany towards a blind man, the narrator seems to get a glimpse of what it is to truly fit into the blind mans shoe.
The narrator, or storyteller, of Raymond Carver's short story "Cathedral" opens by saying, "This blind man, an old friend of my wife's, he was on his way to spend the night." The narrator goes on to explain that after the blind man's wife died while visiting her relatives in nearby Connecticut, he had called the narrator's wife from his in-laws' and made arrangements to visit. The narrator admits he is not excited about the visit. "He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to."
...thedral together, so the husband got paper bag and a pen to draw on. They began drawing and after a few minutes, the blind man asked the husband to close his eyes and keep drawing. The husband felt different than he’d ever felt in his life. He kept his eyes closed when the blind man told him to open them and look, the husband replied, “It’s really something. (Carver 147)” The husband never thought he would have the experience he did with the blind man, as they basically became friends. The husband’s view of a blind person had changed. He saw life from a blind man’s perspective and actually appreciated it. Never judge a book by its cover, as you have no idea what may be inside of it.
The story of Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, shows that you do not have to see someone or something in order to appreciate them for who or what they are. It is about a husband, the narrator, and his wife who live in a house. The wife, whose name they do not mention, has a very close friend who is blind. His name is Robert. Robert's wife dies, and comes to their house to spend a couple of days with the narrator and his wife. The narrator, whose name they do not mention as well, is always on edge because he does not really know Robert very well and he does not like blind people, but he is being friendly for his wife's sake. The story comes to an end when Robert and the narrator draw a cathedral together using the narrator's hand and helped by Robert.
The story is about a blind man who visits a married couple. He is an old friend of the wife, but the husband does not look forward to see the blind man (called Robert) because he does not know what to expect. He has never known any blind persons and his picture of these is based on a very little foundation. He has a lot of prejudices against Robert, but during his visit he changes his opinion about him. While watching TV together they get each other to know better and the husband finds out that he actually likes his company. They watch a program about cathedrals and while talking about cathedrals, Robert says that he does not even know how a cathedral looks like. The husband tries to explain what a cathedral is and how it is built, but Robert does not understand it. Therefore he suggests that they can draw one together. In that way Robert gets a picture of a cathedral in his mind and even though it is not as good as seeing it with his own eyes, it is good enough to give him an idea of what a cathedral is.
In the short story, Cathedral by Raymond Carver, the narrators’ perspectives undergo massive change. The narrator of the story starts out being “blind” towards a person’s true character, and he also lacks insight and self-awareness. Ironically a blind man named Robert helps him truly see again. The narrator isn’t actually blind but he has a hard time seeing and understanding perspectives that aren’t his. But throughout the night, Robert and the narrator get to know each other and end up enjoying each other’s company. By the end of the story, the narrator finally accepts Robert for who he is, and could put his feet into Roberts shoes and the narrator learns how to truly “see” from a blind man.
In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, showcases the narrator's reflection and insight within himself by gaining a perspective through the eyes of Robert. In a variety of ways this story reads as a communion. Communions are usually about forgiveness and coming clean with your sins that you might of made within your past. The unnamed narrator within the story is constantly searching for forgiveness within himself. At first the narrator is a little bit wary of Robert the Blind man coming to visit his wife. The narrator is initially fearful of meeting him due to the lack of experience with blind people. He mentions that his idea of blind people has come from “movies” that he has seen
Through the first paragraphs the husband (narrator) develops many comments and short thoughts. The husband begins to generate ideas of the blind man and starts to say, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit...My idea of blindness came from the movies...A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 174). The words and the pattern of ideas are comparable to how we examine people and generate thoughts about them, especially when we first meet someone. Carver incorporates the husband’s thought process to connect with the audience, through similar
Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” shows that you can be judgmental against the blind but for example, in the main character’s case, can turn out to be you friend too. In his story, there is a lot of evidence of how society perceives people with disabilities. The main character begins by having the ablest point of view towards his wife’s friend. However, he soon finds out through his epiphany that the “blind man” is not different than he is. This essay will argue that “Cathedral” uses the narrator’s epiphany to shows how throughout the story people can overcome their ableism point of view. The contemporary relevance of this issue is reflected in the sources “Why Do We Fear the Blind” and “Feeling My Way Through Blindness” in that it gives
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.