Three Main Characters In 'Cathedral' By Raymond Carver

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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. Cathedral, the short story, takes place when narrator’s wife invites Robert to visit them. The unnamed narrator is not happy that his wife is inviting her old friend to their house and he is blind. Robert actually visits his family because his wife died recently. He arranges to visit her on the way as …show more content…

A zero ending is an ending that doesn’t neatly tie up the strands of a story. It may not even seem like an ending—in some cases, the writer may seem to have left off in the middle of a thought or idea. The abrupt ending to the story leaves many questions unanswered, such as how exactly the narrator has changed, if his relationship with his wife will change, or how his opinion of Robert has changed. But the answers to these questions are not the point of the story. “Cathedral” concerns the change in one man’s understanding of himself and the world, and narrator ends the story at exactly the moment when this change flickers in his mind. The narrator has not become a new person or achieved any kind of soul-changing enlightenment. In fact, the narrator’s final words, “It’s really something,” reveal him to be the same curt, inarticulate man he’s always

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