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Theme in cathedral by raymond carver
Theme in cathedral by raymond carver
Theme in cathedral by raymond carver
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In Cathedral, Raymond Carver shares his characters’ relationships and their inability to understand the significance of their own relationships. The narrator and the blind man known as “Robert” are the two main characters in the story. Carver’s “Cathedral” is narrated by the main character who is ignorant, self-centered and unaware. Robert the blind man, on the other hand, is insightful and understands life. Ironically, he is blind but has a right perspective and is not ignorant. Both characters have feelings for the narrator’s wife. Robert and the narrator have relationship issues, but they both have different ways to solve the problem. The narrator is uncomfortable with Robert spending the night at his house, whereas when Robert met him, …show more content…
To this the narrator said “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit […] And his being blind bothered me” (1). This shows the narrator’s ignorance and self-centered character. He was uncomfortable with Robert being blind just because he has never known anyone who was blind. He thought anyone who is blind leads a dull and miserable life. Later in the story when his wife tells him about Beulah Robert’s wife, his first question is “Was his wife a Negro” (3). The tone used by the narrator reveals his racist character. After learning more about Beulah, he felt sorry for Robert because he could not see what his wife looked like. He also mentioned that Beulah could have worn anything she wanted because her husband could not see and compliment her. The narrator, with his words, expresses that he only cares about physical characteristics and is not familiar with the inner beauty a person could entail. When the narrator’s wife is leading Robert in the house, she has a beautiful smile on her face. She enjoys the company of Robert and is jubilant with him. Even when the narrator acted awkwardly and asked disrespectful questions because of his ignorance, Robert replied politely and called him “Bub” as a sign of friendship. This shows Robert’s warm and lively …show more content…
Throughout the story, the narrator repeats the phrase “my wife” which shows that he still loves her even though they sleep in different bedrooms. He is physically attracted to his wife but is unaware of her emotional needs. Whereas Robert’s affection for the narrator’s wife is shown through the way he touched her face when she used to work for him as a reader. He kept in touch with her and exchanged audio tapes. He listened to her and had established a good relationship with her over the years. The narrator is jealous and feels insecure when he notices that his wife cannot take her eyes off of Robert. Both Robert and the narrator love her in very different
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.
The narrator also feels intimidated by his wife?s relationship with the blind man. When he is telling of her friendship with Robert h...
When I read “Cathedral” a short story by Raymond Carver, it leaves me with many questions as well as lessons. This story mainly encounters behaviors and discussions between the three main characters. The three main characters of the story are the unnamed narrator, his wife and the Robert. The unnamed narrator is kind of the main character who describes his experience with Robert. He is jealous of his wife’s past and doesn’t want Robert to visit them. Robert is a blind man who is an old friend of narrator’s wife. Narrator’s wife is an unnamed woman who invited Robert to her home after a long period of time. The short story mostly revolves around these three characters and their discussions.
In “Cathedral”, by Raymond Carver, there is a big issue with the idea of acceptance of people who are different. In this story this idea of acceptance of those who are different focuses on the aspect of a disability, specifically blindness. Throughout the story Carver explores this idea through a theme focusing on the difference and relationship between the blind man, Robert, and the narrator. In the beginning Carver starts off with an acceptance and a misunderstanding of this difference between Robert and the narrator. Yet towards the end, the narrator experiences a change in him that allows him to see what he misunderstood and dint exactly accept and now he has the ability to understand and embrace Robert as a real human being,
The narrator’s wife has an old friend that’s his wife that has just died and so has him come visit her. From the beginning of the story, we see the narrator’s personality comes off very strong against not wanting his wife’s blind friend Robert to come to his house to visit. The narrator tells his wife that he isn’t happy about this visitor and that the man’s blindness unsettles him. The narrator seems very jealous of the fact that someone besides him is going to be taking his wife
This is evident within the trust issues that the narrator overcame during the story. The narrator tells readers about a poem his wife wrote where she describes the experience of Robert touching her nose and lips. Furthermore, the narrator states that he didn’t think much of the poem. This shows that the narrator is in essence, jealous of Robert’s interaction with her, as Robert was able to connect to her in a way that the narrator failed to comprehend initially. In drawing the cathedral, the narrator could finally understand the knowledge that his wife had attained many years before him and understood what it was that had drawn his wife to the blind man, thus removing any insecurities he may have had. In addition, the narrator’s wife also opened the narrator’s mind through her demonstration of trust. The narrator’s wife says to the narrator, “If you love me, you can do this for me. If you don't love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I'd make him feel comfortable" (carver, 3). In expressing this statement, the narrator’s wife shows that she does indeed love the narrator and is trying to prove this to him. It also demonstrates that the narrator himself is being reluctant in allowing the blind man into his home due to a lack of trust towards his wife. As Robert turns out to be an exceptional character to the narrator, he inevitably learns to trust his
Upon reading “The Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the reader can immediately notice various literary elements he uses to show the shift from sight to insight in the narrator using symbolism, motifs, and theme. Carver illustrates the narrator as a somewhat racist, close-minded man towards the beginning of the story, but then evolves the character with the literary elements previously stated.
It is known from the very first sentence of the story “This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night.” (455) the narrator is not enthused about the strangers visit, he even established that it is not a friend of his, but his wife’s. The tone of the narrator automatically expresses that he is a narrow minded character who cannot see more than what is displayed at the surface. …. The narrator also adopts a insecure tone when faced with the obvious intimacy between the narrator’s wife and the blind man. He feels threatened and becomes extremely insecure in his
In Raymond Carver’s short story, “Cathedral” the narrator is revealed to be a self-centered and egotistical man with the inability to see events and people from any point of view other than his own. About midway through the story I was completely aware of his lack of respect and consideration for other people and their views that differ from his. It was made even more apparent by his opinions towards his wife’s old friend, Robert, A blind man whom she had met & befriended 10 years ago. Despite the narrators close-minded views the narrator eventually has an epiphany that changes his views of not of not only Robert, but his entire outlook on every aspect of his life up to that point. Finally, I can pinpoint and properly explain my thought process
A passage or so goes by with them drinking and having small talk and when the narrator changes the channel to a program showing a cathedral they begin a deeper conversation that ends up breaking the narrator’s wall down. Finding out that the blind man does not know what a cathedral looks like, the narrator tries to describe it to him but fails.(Carver 45) At this point, the narrator realizes that if he wants to show Robert what a cathedral looks like, then he has to be like Robert and use his sense of feel instead of sight. Afterwards, Robert tells the narrator to grab some paper and a pen and that by feeling what the narrator is drawing, he himself can see it in his mind’s eye. And that is what they do, in the end they draw a cathedral and the narrator says to himself, “it’s really something” (Carver 46).By drawing the cathedral with Robert and closing his eyes, he can now truly see beyond the superficial thoughts he had against the man and realizes that he is no longer trapped behind the wall he built up. Also by drawing a cathedral, which can symbolize a place to come together at, he is now not alone and is in a way connected to Robert. This entire scene in the book, is said to be identical to what happened to Carver himself and Jerry Carriveau the blind man who actually came to visit the family (Caldwell). By drawing with the
The story “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver is a story of two men, whose ability to see things were completely different from one another, but something had united them at the end of the story which is why it is so fascinating. The narrator, who doesn’t have the name, is confronted by a visitor in his house when his wife invites a blind man, named Robert, to come over to their house. The narrator assumes that he’s superior to Robert when he arrives. Why not? He was able to see things physically but Robert wasn’t. Robert, however, has an ability to see things at a deeper level. He may be physically blind, but later on, it turn out to be that the narrator was the one who is actually blind. The Cathedral is drawn by the narrator and Robert, and it
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 Cathedral, the narrator seems to be blinder than Robert, who is actually blind. While Carver was in his 20’s, after he got married at age 19, he began to become blind to all that was in front of him and started drinking. When he wrote Cathedral, the narrator is
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.