Richard Carver’s “Cathedral” focuses on the dealing and overcoming of predispositions. On a more critical accord, “Cathedral” exemplifies the testing journey of marriage. Carver reveals the reality of close outside friendships impends on marriage through unsettling insecurities, conflicting emotions, and ultimately leading to betrayal.
Within the text we notice the invading friendship between the unrevealed narrator’s (the husband) wife and the blind character Robert. Their relationship initiates the insecurities for the narrator, as it transpired though the course of ten years and many deep revealing conversations. Robert and his wife shared with each other countless important and confidential moments of their lives, but the narrator deems this as a breach of marriage confidentiality as he states “…she’s told him everything!” (1055). His anxiety is exemplified when Robert comes and says he feels as if they’ve already met, which left the narrator spinning in the wonder of what Robert has seen. He is left with his raging emotions as he processes the warm embrace his wife and Robert...
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.
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 narrator’s wife knew Robert for a long time because she used to work for him and his wife had died so she was the one who was taking care of him since he was all alone. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit” (Carver 2) said the narrator. The narrator did not like the blind man because he was extremely close with his wife and they were always sending each other tapes in the mail to keep in touch. Since the narrator was not such a big fan of the blind man, he did not understand why it was such a important time when Robert had asked to touch his wife’s face during her last day working with him. She was working with him all summer but he was blind so he did not even know what she looked like so when he touched her face, she wanted to write a poem about it since it was an important time during her summer job helping him. A while after the narrators wife worked with Robert, they ended up communicating again and she sent him a recording of her talking about her recent life. “She loved her husband but she didn’t like it where they lived and she didn’t like it that he was a part of the military-industrial thing” (Carver 2). The narrator was getting jealous of this relationship between the two of them because it seemed to be going better then his and his wife’s relationship. Since the blind man moved into their house for a period of time,
This essay is going to be about “Cathedral” which is a short story written by Raymond Carver. Cathedral is simply the narrative of a man and his acceptance and understanding of a blind man. The man himself is a symbol of the overlying theme of the story, which is overcoming one’s personal prejudice. Throughout the story the narrator shows that he has a predetermined mindset of what a blind man is, his struggles, and his lifestyle. The author shows that the narrator’s stubbornness affects both his relationship with his wife, and his personal evocation of emotions. In Raymond Carvers “Cathedral”, we see the struggles of overcoming prejudices tackled throughout the narrative, as depicted through motifs, and symbols.
During this story, the storyteller, who is bias, is drastically changed once a blind man Robert opens the narrator's eyes to understanding the deeper that means of the globe around him. The story primarily focuses on the storyteller and there for the approach Robert changes the narrator's perspective about the world and him. At the end of the story, Robert has a friend, no longer a hazard or an opponent. Absorbing that Robert is a good man, and that his spouse and Robert are just friends. It also presents an acquaintance in mutual, which is somewhat they seem absent. Bub might furthermore improvement a better relationship with his wife.
Unfortunately, these terms describe the narrator very accurately, but what we don't know is, why does he act this way with his wife, when it concerns Robert? It is the opinion of the writer of this essay, that the Narrator is only insecure. The relationship that his wife shares with another man is uncommon, regardless of whether or not he is blind. Although, the wife sees her communication with Robert as being harmless, and a means of expressing herself. However, on the other hand, the Narrator sees, hears and understand, that his wife has an intimate relationship with Robert. Although she will never admit it.
The most striking aspect of Carver’s “Cathedral” is the fact that the story is written from the point of view of a man not initially involved in the set up of the story at all. The narrator relays to the reader stories he has learned from his wife about her past before relaying what is happening in the present. He tells her history as if he were speaking to himself in an interio...
In a way he was kind of a “blind” person at the beginning of the story, he was blinded by jealousy and fear to find out that the blind man and his wife share and intimate relationship. Once he got to know the real Robert, he opened up to him and realizes that his wife and and the blind man are nothing more than friends. The author makes it seem as if the narrator is not happy in his marriage, since jealousy doesn't show good sign of a healthy relationship. The narrator thinks his wife could be secretly in love with the blind man and, he thinks that because his wife usually writes about things that matters to her. We can also see that he definitely loves his wife, since at the end of the story he is nice to Robert in a gesture to please his wife, turning him into a friend in the end. As for the narrators wife Some of the traits observed in her are kindness, sincerity and openness. She gets friends easily, but they doesn't las long. This gives a clue why Robert’s friendship is so important to her, but she doesn’t realize that by her trying to make Robert feel comfortable, she is forgetting her husband’s needs, which makes him jealous and maybe
A short story about a couple who interactions with a blind man, about the overly masculine presence of the narrator and his desire to the center of conversation, how the wife struggles with depression and lack of self confidence, and eventually pushes back and triumphs. Carver paints a mental image throughout Cathedral of how being close-minded and ignorant comes to bite the narrator in the end.
“Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver is a short story with a skeptical, yet heartwarming message about judgmental and prospering challenges. This short story starts with a case of discomfort from the main character, because of his jealousy towards an old blind man. In this story, I got the feeling of possessiveness or simply jealousy that the main character/ narrative has while reading, and how his discomfort was brought on by the old blind man and the elderly blind man’s relationship with the narrator’s wife. The wife and elderly man were close and worked together about ten years before and had continued a father/mentor relationship for years after. All in all, I did personally argue that the narrator has a slight
Logan Pearsall Smith once said, “It is not what an author says, but what he or she whispers, that is important.” This quote indicates that is it not the words that the author writes, but the meaning that is hidden in between the lines that matters the most. It is the job of the reader to interpret what the author is trying to actually say. This statement justifies that authors might provide their audience with certain themes by the means of the sentences in their stories. Both of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories Hills like White Elephants and Soldier’s Home support the idea. Hemingway does not exactly indicate his view on the world, but one might guess it by the way he writes his characters. Within each of his stories, the reader might find that Hemingway makes the male character the dominant sex by the use of characterization and conflict.
Cathedral is a short story that evokes a powerful message of perspective. With only three underdeveloped characters and 13 pages, Raymond Carver is able to present a life altering, and rather relatable snippet in one man’s life. With little details or development, one can distinguish tenseness between characters, and especially in the husband’s inner dialog. Along with the husband’s discomfort, Carver also alludes to a cold power complex, mostly caused by discrimination, between the husband and the blind man. The husband, wife, and blind man are coming together for the first time, and readers are subject to the husband’s views transforming.
In today’s society, the notion and belief of growing old, getting married, having kids, and a maintaining of a happy family, seems to be a common value among most people. In Kevin Brockmeier’s short story, “The Ceiling,” Brockmeier implies that marriage is not necessary in our society. In fact, Brockmeier criticizes the belief of marriage in his literary work. Brockmeier reveals that marriage usually leads to or ends in disaster, specifically, all marriages are doomed to fail from the start. Throughout the story, the male protagonist, the husband, becomes more and more separated from his wife. As the tension increases between the protagonist and his wife, Brockmeier symbolizes a failing marriage between the husband and wife as he depicts the ceiling in the sky closing upon the town in which they live, and eventually crushing the town entirely as a whole.
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.
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.