Compare Cathedral And An Adventure In Paris

While stories are leading readers to experience a different world and an experience that might not be possible in the reality that is limited by time and location, characters inside the story could also experience a change in settings, mentally or physically, that transforms their lives. As the readers follow the characters’ journey, they can understand more about the characters or the deeper messages that the authors want to deliver. In “Cathedral” and “An Adventure in Paris”, the main characters both experienced a great change in their lives with a mind-changing incident, and the changes happened at a distant place from where they were residing. The dramatic contrast between the physical or mental location, together with the acceleration

However, the placement of the contrasting settings from the normal situation of the characters in the two stories is different. In “Cathedral”, the narrator’s home is contrasted by the cathedral that was visualized by him as he was guided by Robert. The whole story happened at the narrator’s home, and that was the place where he stated the various judgmental and biased statements, including demeaning his wife’s care for Roberta and ungrounded descriptions of the life of Robert and Beulah. As the narrator started to know Robert, the descriptions about Robert were still having a skeptical tone. For example, he showed respect as Robert was able to eat neatly, while he was obviously surprised by Robert’s ability (Carver). The setting in his house spanned for most of the story until the climax in page 84, when they started the construction of the cathedral. In the cathedral in his mind, though the cathedral is not a physical space but a mental space created by the narrator, it acts in many ways like a real place. The cathedral provided a space for the narrator to reconcile his prejudice with Robert, as they are now in the same space with the same senses. It is a religious or spiritual place for him to learn deeper about himself and his relationship with

In “Cathedral”, the two location settings are actually happening in the same physical space – the narrator’s home. The cathedral was originally a place that meant nothing to the narrator, and it was only something that was in the television. It was then transformed into the space that existed in the narrator’s imagination. However, that was the space where Robert and the narrator can truly communicate. As the story ends, Carver actually emphasized that the narrator was in his house, but he felt he was not inside anything. The cathedral, which symbolizes freedom and boundless imagination, merged into the narrator’s life and he then saw his life less limited by prejudices and prejudgments. In this case, the two settings