In the short story, “Cathedral” written by Raymond Carver, the author tells the story in first person, which is very effective because he tends to project some of his own feelings and habits onto the main character such as drinking and loneliness. The reader can pick up that the time is set in the mid-fifties from the talk of new colored television and traditional ways of the household. The main plot in the story is the main character has his wife’s friend good, blind friend stay with them, Robert. With Robert being blind, this gives the main character some uncertain feelings. Throughout the story, the husband realizes that Robert is not the typical stereotype of blind people, which he thought he was going to be. At the end, the main character…
in the poem cathedral by robert carvin the narrator is told by his wife that she is inviting a blind friend over the narrator finds out that his wife has been send audio tapes with a blind man named Robert who she worked for several years ago. at first the narrator was closed minded about the blind man but when the wife bring the blindman from the airport he introduces himself as robert the first thing that came to robert mind was that not what he was expecting a blind man to look like how robert was dressed he was not expecting him to have a full beard and not wear dark glasses.During his visit and dinner, the narrator feels threatened by the relationship his wife and Robert share and he doesn't know why throughout the story the narrator…
In the beginning of the "Cathedral" the narrator comes off very prejudice. Raymond Carver says "my idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed." The narrators’ attitude towards the blind and how they live their life is very naive. Unlike her husband the narrators wife is understanding and compassionate. Although interactions between the two couple would suggest their marriage was in strife. As for Robert he is the blind man who joins the group already being good friends with the narrator’s wife. The narrator at first is uncomfortable around Robert. But as interactions between the two men progress the narrator is finally able to see what his wife saw in Robert the whole time. A kind and ordinary man, who was no different than you and…
In the beginning, the narrator implies he is close minded and insensitive. He begins by stating, “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (34). (Insert fact about social awkwardness around people with disabilities.) The narrator implies also cruel by stating to his wife that he should take the blind man bowling. From the beginning of the short story, the superficial narrator sees people from how they appear on the outside instead of valuing the person’s inside. The drawing of the cathedral marks the climax in the story because it is when the narrator has an epiphany and becomes enlightened. He states with a different perspective, “It was like nothing else in my life up to now” (46). The narrator is compelled to realize what it is like to truly have sight and also distinguishes how to relate with the blind man.…
The “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story about the narrator, his wife and his wife’s friend Robert, who is a blind man that she used to work for as a reader about ten years ago. They were able to keep in touch by mailing tapes to each other. Robert’ wife just died so he was coming for dinner and was going to spend the night at their house after visiting some relatives.…
Raymond Carver, Jr. was an American short story author and poet. He was born in 1938 and died in 1988. He was married twice, struggled with drugs and alcoholism, and was an unsuccessful writer early on in his career. It was not until his publication of “Cathedral” that he gained success. Carver even believed that “Cathedral was a watershed in his career, in its shift towards a more optimistic and confidently poetic style” (Arciniegas). “Cathedral” starts out slow, spending most of the short story on the back story of the narrator’s wife and a blind man. The story progresses with the three characters doing mostly everyday things, eating, talking, and drinking. While this happens, the narrator’s ideas of the blind are challenged little by…
In the story the “Cathedral”, by Raymond Carver, the narrator, Bub is a man of unknowing stuff, and usually assumes things without knowing the knowledge of certain things. For example, Robert a blind man, who visited bub, and his wife, and bub didn’t like the feeling a blind man coming to his home. Robert knew bubs wife from the past from a place where they read stories to blind people. Later in the story bub notices his wife and Robert were talking, and laughing, and just having a good time, which bothered Bub. Lastly, in the story the narrator and Robert had connected in the end by having the narrator drawing the cathedral and having him closing his eyes and that the narrator realized how it feels to be blind and that’s he likes the feeling.…
In the story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator is overwhelmed with disappointment and misunderstanding in his own life. He doesn’t see all the beauty and creativity in the world, but merely goes through the motions of life without actively living. Blindness is an underlying theme in this story, but not only as a physicality, but a social handicap. The narrator may be more capable of sight than the blind man, but he knows nothing of the descriptive illustration of life. It is through the blind mans probing of the narrator, that he finally discovers how closed off and shielded he has been. We can see a revelation in the narrator, and a transformation in his mindset.…
Throughout the story, Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, readers are shown the other side of blindness. In the world, one may assume that there is just one type of blindness- being sightless. “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, 1). The meaning of blindness goes much deeper than that. Through the actions and words of a character, the husband in this short story, readers are shown how much ignorance, fear, and confusion one can have for someone who has literal blindness. All these negative feelings towards the blind man leads to the husband finding the blindness within himself.…
The narrator is very skeptical of Robert the blind man because he doesn’t understand how someone would want to continue to live even though you can’t see. He states “And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies.” The narrator is making prejudgments of the blind man based off what he has seen in movies. This leads me to believe that he is a closed minded man and doesn’t want to try to understand Roberts’s life because he thinks he already has a good grasp on it based on the movie. “For a man who can see, the narrator in “Cathedral” says little about what he sees.”(“Raymond Carver Essay on Cathedral." By Drew Woodson. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.). Woodson is talking about how the narrator conducts his life, by not describing what he sees means he takes it for granted and doesn’t understand. He also asks if Roberts’s wife was a “Negro” because her name was Beulah. This adds to the assumptions that the narrator is intolerable to people that are not like him. “Negro” is a hateful word that is only used to describe a black person in a condescending way. He also makes a generalization by assuming that Roberts wife is black because of her name. The narrator goes on to state “the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing eye dogs.” These are the assumptions he has in his head because…
In the short story “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver, the narrator draws a cathedral with his blind guest and transforms from a narrow-minded, materialistic, and superficial individual to an individual who acknowledges the spiritual aspects of life and the lives of those around him. Before the egoist narrator meets the blind man, Bub is so closed-minded, jealous, and materialistic that he does not want to help someone in need and he does not empathize with the hardships others endure. However, after Bub communicates with Robert and engineers an emotional connection, he is no longer limited by his former characteristics. Through this emotional link, Robert assists Bub in opening his mind to the spiritual world and feeling empathy for others.…
Blindness can manifest itself in many ways. Arguably the most detrimental form of this condition may be the figurative blindness of ones own situations and ignorance towards the feelings of others. In Raymond Carver 's short story "Cathedral," the narrator 's emotional and psychological blindness is immediately apparent. The many issues faced by the narrator as well as the turn-around experienced at the culmination of the tale are the main ideas for the theme of this story; and these ideas aid the narrator in eventually succumbing to character transformation by simply regarding the literal blind man in a positive light.…
Throughout Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the nameless narrator, the main character develops emotionally through a situation that creates fear in an already introverted man. He does not want to go outside of his comfort zone and he is caught off guard when he is forced beyond his current developmental state. But, through a lesson from the blind narrator finds himself enlightened to the sentiments of the handicapped.…
The narrator is shown to be a man who is envious of his wife’s first husband, jealous of her bond with the blind man and who smokes marijuana daily. The narrator’s use of a narrative point of view helps give the readers an inside of his personal thoughts about the blind man, Robert. Stereotypes and intimidations are constantly present with the narrators thought’s such as “they move slow, use canes, wear dark glasses, never laugh, and use seeing-eyedogs.” This helps demonstrate the view the narrator has towards the blind. Further into the story the narrator’s thoughts take a dramatic enlightening turn with the use of a cathedral, it serves as a way to grasp the narrator and show him to “see” things in a different prospective.…
In this story he creates a realistic human picture. He wants us to see the narrator’s character as figuratively blind. By the title we think the story is about a cathedral, but it is really about two man who are blind, on physically and the other psychologically. The Narrator looks at life from a very narrow-minded point of view, for example he seems to believe that the most important thing to women is being complimented on their looks: second he is unable to imagine his wife’s friend as a person, only as a blind man.…