A Blind Man’s Gift in Cathedral
In Raymond Carver’s story, "Cathedral," one man’s prejudice is overcome by another man’s gift. The husband in the story is given the gift of seeing a cathedral through a blind man’s eyes. The true gift comes from the cathedral, which represents the husband’s prejudice and the blind man’s open-mindedness. This gift is the revelation the husband experiences while he "looks" at the cathedral with his eyes still closed.
According to Anatole Broyard "Cathedral" is "a lovely piece about a blind man who asks an acquaintance to guide his hand in sketching a cathedral he has never seen. At the end, the two hands moving together—one guided by the other—come to seem a gesture of fraternity" (101). The cathedral represents a bond that is formed through the blind man’s ability to break through the husband’s prejudice. The husband learns a lot from Robert, the blind man, and he learns a lot from himself.
The husband had a preconceived notion about Robert because he had no experience around blind people. He admits that his knowledge of blindness came from watching movies. The husband found it hard to believe that Robert had a beard, that he could tell the difference between a color television and a black and white television, and that he had eyes that looked (even if they did not see) just like everyone else’s. The husband underestimates Robert because he has made a judgment about him based not on knowledge or experience but only on ignorance. He dismisses Robert not just because his wife is giving him so much attention, but because Robert is different. As the story goes on, the husband’s prejudice weakens, and he becomes more and more impressed with the extent of this blind man’s capabilities...
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...d. The cathedral is the means through which the husband and Robert bond, and the husband is gifted with his final revelation. In the end, the husband really is something when he sees through blind eyes.
Works Cited
Allen, Bruce. "MacArthur Award Winners Produce Two of the Season’s Best." Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 36. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1986. 103.
Broyard, Anatole. "Diffuse Regrets." Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 36. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1986. 100.
Carver, Raymond. "Cathedral." The Harper Anthology of Fiction Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. 1052-62.
Johnson, Charles. "Writing That Will Be ‘Around for a Time’." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 55. Ed. Roger Marowski. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1989. 281.82.
The significance of the final scene in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” is important because illustrates how people with a negative demeanor can develop into a person with a positive attitude towards others. In the story, Bub not only falsely assumes bad things about blind people, but also about others as well. For example, he assumes that Roberts wife is a “negro” woman because her name was Beulah. The things that Bub assumes about Robert and Beulah resemble Bub’s negative attitude and personality toward the blind man and Beulah. Towards the end of the story, as Bub and Robert were watching television, the show featured a particular Cathedral. Robert asked Bub to describe the Cathedral when Robert says, “I wish you’d do it. I’d like that. If you
Although many critics have written numerous accounts of Richard Carver’s "Cathedral" as being about revelation and overcoming prejudice, they have overlooked a very significant aspect: the unfolding of marital drama. The story tells of how a close outside friendship can threaten marriage by provoking insecurities, creating feelings of invasion of privacy, and aggravating communication barriers.
When envisioning a prison, one often conceptualizes a grisly scene of hardened rapists and murderers wandering aimlessly down the darkened halls of Alcatraz, as opposed to a pleasant facility catering to the needs of troubled souls. Prisons have long been a source of punishment for inmates in America and the debate continues as to whether or not an overhaul of the US prison system should occur. Such an overhaul would readjust the focuses of prison to rehabilitation and incarceration of inmates instead of the current focuses of punishment and incarceration. Altering the goal of the entire state and federal prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation is an unrealistic objective, however. Rehabilitation should not be the main purpose of prison because there are outlying factors that negatively affect the success of rehabilitation programs and such programs would be too costly for prisons currently struggling to accommodate additional inmate needs.
Upon reading Raymond Carver's short story of the Cathedral one will notice the literary devices used in the short story. When analyzing the story completely, one then understands the themes, motifs, metaphors, and the overall point of the piece. This leaves the reader with an appreciation of the story and a feeling of complete satisfaction.
As a result of his inability to relate with Robert, he thinks his behaviors are odd, and is unable to understand the relationship he has with his wife. His wife worked for this blind man many years ago, reading him reports and case studies, and organizing his "...little office" (Carver 98) in the county's social-service department. He remem¬ bers a story his wife told about the last day she worked for him. The blind man asked her if he could touch her face, and she agreed.
Heberle, Mark. "Contemporary Literary Criticism." O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Vol. 74. New York, 2001. 312.
...l of open-mindedness. “Cathedral” concerns the change in one man’s understanding of himself and the world. From the start of the story the narrator is restricted in his understanding to accept the blind man just as his wife has. He cannot fully wrap around the idea of what makes Robert so special. Until, that is, that the narrator starts drawing the cathedral which starts off as a house almost, and expands into something grander. This short story allows us to realize that the world is greater and further detailed than what we consider it in our confined minds. And that in fact we should never assume that there is nothing more to what the eye can see. It simply states that we shouldn’t form an opinion on someone or something based only on what you see on the exterior, because usually after taking the time to explore, the person or thing will not be what you expected.
The husband in Raymond Carvers “Cathedral” wasn’t enthusiastic about his wife’s old friend, whom was a blind man coming over to spend the night with them. His wife had kept in touch with the blind man since she worked for him in Seattle years ago. He didn’t know the blind man; he only heard tapes and stories about him. The man being blind bothered him, “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. (Carver 137)” The husband doesn’t suspect his ideas of blind people to be anything else. The husband is already judging what the blind man will be like without even getting to actually know him. It seems he has judged too soon as his ideas of the blind man change and he gets a better understanding of not only the blind man, but his self as well.
“Cathedral” consists of three individuals. The narrator is the main character, which the story revolves around. The wife of the narrator is the second character, who is the least relevant. The third character is the blind man, named Robert, who is a friend of the wife.
Cathedral was a very interesting short story. It was something that seemed to be personal to the narrator as if he had lived this situation himself. The story did not seem overstated or made up. This story could reflect anybody, because who know when one might get a long lost visitor or learning something new from a complete stranger. The narrator, a man being very prejudice against people who are different then him, especially the narrators wife’s friend Robert who is blind. In the words of John F. Kennedy, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future” (Quotations about Change). The very thing that most people attempt to avoid, often at high costs to themselves, actually can become one of the most rewarding experiences and defining moments in someone’s life. His hatefulness and judgmental statue is four fold in the beginning of the story and changes by the end. With each new step in the story, the narrator learns more of the blind man and realizes more about himself.
Raymond carver’s shorty story “The Cathedral” is nothing short of a classic, it tells of a story about a very judgmental unnamed narrator who is playing host to one of his wife’s old friends who happens to be blind. Nearing the end of the story the narrator realizes he might have been living life the wrong way not enjoying the simplicity’s of life, thanks to the presence of the blind man being such a gentle, carefree and kind individual. It changes the narrator’s whole perspective on life. Carver uses a lot of good imagery to show the narrators changed perspective.
Prisons exist in this country as a means to administer retributive justice for those that break the laws in our society or to state it simply prisons punish criminals that are to receive a sentence of incarceration for more than one year. There are two main sub-cultures within the walls of prison the sub-culture of the Department of Corrections (which consists of the corrections officer, administrators, and all of the staff that work at the prison and go home at the end of their day) and the actual prisoners themselves. As you can imagine these two sub-cultures are dualistic in nature and this makes for a very stressful environment for both sides of the fence. While in prison, the inmates experience the same conditions as described in the previous
In the first paragraph, the narrator also reveals his ignorance. He believes that all blind people are based on only what he has seen in movies, "My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they are led by seeing-eye dogs “(104). The narrator was surprised when he noticed Robert was not like this. The narrator is also surprised when Robert lights a cigarette. He believes blind people don’t smoke because “they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled” (108). The husband starts to feel more comfortable after this. The three of them sit down for dinner and the husbands is impressed with the how Robert is able to locate his food, cut with a knife, and eat properly. This is where the narrator’s outlook starts to undergo change.
This story is about how the narrator is unable to see what life is really giving him and finds it through a blind man’s eyes, the friend of his wife. Cathedral is a touching story, in my opinion, as it reflects on what many of us, society, take for granted. It shows how important it is to give people a chance and to be able to see the true meaning of what surrounds us even if it is not important to our personal life. Throughout the short story, Carver uses several figurative language to expose the theme of the story.
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.