An impairment, whether physical or mental, does not always prevent a person from enjoying life. Carver's short story "Cathedral" is an excellent example in this case, as a longtime friend and visitor, Robert, teaches the narrator a life lesson. In turn, such a lesson ultimately transforms one's opinion about visual impairment and indicates that figurative blindness can have a much greater negative impact on one's life and relationships. However, it takes an entire story to do so because at first, the narrator is hostile to the idea of a visit. This becomes evident through his lack of experience with blind folks, negative remarks about the tapes, and jealousy of the long-standing relationship between Robert and the main character's wife. The storyteller is a person of a close-minded and inconsiderate temperament.
Clark makes a valuable point when he writes, “the anger that resides below the surface of the narration is driven by jealousy: the speaker has not achieved a meaningful connection with his wife the way Robert has” (Clark 109). This translates into yet another struggle about the visit. In fact, the storyteller's personal relationship with his wife isn't quite as colorful as the one between the wife and the blind man. The narrator is jealous of their 10-year-old connection and isn't hesitant to share it with the reader. It becomes clear that one of the key differences among these relationships is simply appreciation. The wife plays such an important role in the life of the blind man and feels acknowledged and regarded by him. On the other side, the narrator appears to lack appropriate recognition for his spouse. When the storyteller shares his thoughts about the poem written by his wife, he states, "I didn't think much of the poem" (Carver 34). Ultimately, while he shows no support to his significant other, the blind man fills in that emotional void with much-needed gratefulness. I agree with Keeping the Reader when he writes, "His [narrator] problem is that he does not 'see' his wife in the sense that he does not seek to understand who she is. The apparent difference between the men is that Robert, despite his physical lack of vision, is open to new experiences" (Clark 108). Clearly, the storyteller keeps himself emotionally disconnected from his wife and speaks of her past experiences, "He talks about her suicide attempt and previous marriage in a coldly analytical way, as if he can barely believe that it truly happened" (Clark 109). In addition, the narrator's tone seems tense while describing the physical occurrence between his wife and Robert, "She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose – even her neck! She never forgot it. She even tried to write a poem about it" (Carver 34).
In Raymond Carver’s story, “Cathedral,” the story tells of how a close outside relationship can threaten a marriage by provoking insecurities, aggravating communication barriers, and creating feelings of invasion of privacy. The husband in the story is given the gift of seeing the cathedral through a blind man’s eyes. Although the title suggests that the story is about a cathedral, it is really about two men who come together and share a vision and realize it is he who is blind. As the story begins, the character of the husband has a negative personality. He lacks compassion, is narrow-minded, and is jealous of his wife’s friendship with a blind man named Robert.
Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” opens with a narrator whose wife has invited a blind friend to spend the night. The narrator depersonalizes the man right off the bat and repeatedly throughout the story by referring to him, not by name, but as “the blind man” (Carver 513). He admits that hi...
Carver provides an easy, visual outlook of the protagonist throughout the short story, which helps keep a better understanding during the simple yet intense experience. As the story continues, the protagonist enhances his mood as he aids Robert to visualizing a cathedral. This experience creates an impact on others because it is a great reason to why one should never judge someone of something beyond their controls. Also, helping someone, as Robert does for Bub can be a life changing experience. Despite the blind man being physically blind, the husband is the one with the disability to see from someone else’s perspective. This is proven through his epiphany during his portrayal of being blind. Although Bub is not physically blind, he interprets a shortage of observations. This shows that in many ways he is blinder than Robert. Robert is more open minded and willing to experience things, in contrast to Bub, who is narrow minded and has problems opening up his mind throughout the short story. Because the protagonist does not fully try to understand his wife, it makes him look like the blind person ironically though he can visually recognize her, proving that he does not truly know her inside and out. Knowing her personally is more of reality and the husband is blind to reality. Carver definitely analyzes the protagonist’s emotions through diction and visual aid throughout the story, providing great understanding of the meaning as a
The short story, “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver, is about a blind man who changes the way the narrator views life by giving him some insight on how he sees things. The characters in this short story are constantly developing into better versions of themselves by sharing their insights with one another.
In the story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, the main character, goes through a major personal transformation. At the beginning of the story, his opinions of others are filled with stereotypes, discrimination and prejudice. Through interaction with his wife's blind friend Robert, his attitude and outlook on life changes. Although at first he seemed afraid to associate with a blind man, Robert's outgoing personality left him with virtually no choice. During Robert's visit, he proved to be a normal man, and showed the speaker that by closing his eyes, he could open his mind.
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 limitations that were holding the narrator back were abolished through a process from which a blind man, in some sense, cured a physically healthy man. The blind man cured the narrator of these limitations, and opened him up to a whole world of new possibilities. Robert enabled the narrator to view the world in a whole new way, a way without the heavy weights of prejudice, jealousy, and insecurity holding him down. The blind man shows the narrator how to see.
The narrator also feels intimidated by his wife?s relationship with the blind man. When he is telling of her friendship with Robert h...
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.
Raymond Carver, in his short story Cathedral uses a first-person narrator, whose point of view is very much limited and flawed. The narrator in Cathedral has full use of all his senses, unlike the blind man, Robert, who is introduced very early in the story. When comparing the two again, however, Robert is the character that is open to new ideas and willing to experience the joys of life, while the narrator limits himself due to his close-minded thinking. It brings up the question, who is truly blind in the story? Is it a physical ailment or a mental block? The narrator is never given a name in the story, making him the most impersonal character in the story. This also adds to the fact that the narrator is highly ignorant about his surroundings and has a one-sided, self-absorbed view of the world. The perception of the narrator leaves much to be inferred in many points in the story, and at first, it seems pointless to have such a closed off character and the one telling his point of view. I would like to hear the story from the wife’s point of view or Robert’s. Ultimately, however, the limited point of view of the narrator shows where the true ignorance in the world lies.
Many people view blindness as a disability, but could these people be blind to their surroundings? Even though the narrator can perfectly see with his eyes, he lacks in understanding awareness. The narrator blindness isn 't physical, like many vision impaired people. His blindness is psychological, and his blindness causes him to become jealous. His blindness blocks his perception of viewing the world in a different way. This only causes him to see the physical attributes of humans, and thus shut off his mindfulness of viewing human personalities. As a result of a closed mind, the narrator doesn 't understand how Robert was able to live with the fact that he was never able to see his wife in the flesh, but the narrator fails to see that Robert vision of his wife was intimate. On the other hand, Robert blindness is physical. This causes Robert to experience the world in a unique manner. Without Robert eyesight, he is able to have a glimpse of a human personality. He uses his disability to paint pictures in his head to experience the world. By putting his psychological blindness aside, the narrator is able to bond with Robert, and he grasps the understanding of opening his eyes for the first time, and this forms a new beginning of a
The unnamed narrator of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” poses as an unreliable narrator for his unaccepting nature towards blind people along with his ignorant perception of many realities in his life that Carver presents for the reader to take into question. The narrator holds prejudice against Robert, a blind man whom the narrator’s wife worked with ten years earlier and eventually befriends. Unperceptive to many of the actualities in his own life, the narrator paints an inaccurate picture of Robert that he will soon find to be far from the truth.
The narrator's insensitivity reveals itself early in the story when his wife's blind friend, Robert, comes for a visit after the death of his wife. Almost immediately in the beginning of the story the narrator admits "A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to." [Carver 2368] He even goes so far as to suggest to his wife that he take the man bowling. He hears the story of Robert's dead wife and can not even imagine " what a pitiful life this woman must have led." [Carver 2370] The narrator is superficial, only recognizing the external part of people and not recognizing the value of a person on the inside.
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.
This theme goes hand in hand with the theme portrayed in Hills Like White Elephants. In the story the narrator, whose name is never mentioned, has something against his wife’s blind friend, Robert, due to the fact that he cannot see. Robert visits the narrator and the narrator’s wife for company. It seems that the narrator had a preconceived idea that all blind people are boring, depressed, stupid, and are barely even human at all based on the fact that they cannot see the world. Robert, although he is blind, is a caring and outgoing person who is extremely close with the narrator’s wife. The fact that Robert is extremely close with the narrator’s wife should be reason enough for the narrator to accept him as a person, but he is a cold and shallow person with no friends. His relationship with his wife is lacking good communication and seems very bland. Robert’s wife recently passed away, but their relationship was deep and they were truly in love with each other. The narrator was blind to how a woman could work with, sleep with, be intimate with, and marry Robert as has he talks about how he felt sorry for her. The narrator is superficial and does not understand true love or