Analysis Of Raymond Carver 's Cathedral, A Man And His Wife On The Surface

Raymond Carver’s unnamed narrator in “Cathedral” provides a first-person point of view. This perspective opens a clear window into the feelings, attitudes, and the isolation of the unnamed narrator. The narrator’s tone of voice reveals his feelings and personality. This contributes to the story’s themes because the reader comes to understand things that the narrator never directly or deliberately reveals; as a result, the reader comes to empathize with the narrator more deeply. Isolation and loneliness are prevalent themes in “Cathedral”. Appropriately, the narrator is insular and narrow-minded. He is unhappy and resentful because he overlooks the worth and liveliness of other people and is unable to make connections with them. Consequently he is afflicted with loneliness and isolation. “He is numb and isolated”, says Mark A.R. Facknitz, “a modern man for whom integration with the human race would be so difficult that it is futile. Consequently he hides by failing to try, anesthetizes himself with booze, and explains away the world with sarcasm.” (Facknitz 294) The narrator also appears to be emotionally distant from his wife. Neither he nor his wife are able to relate successfully to one another. Because of this, he is envious of the blind man, Robert, who seems to be the only one capable of creating and sustaining deep and personal connections with other people. As the story develops, the narrator’s increasing ability to connect with Robert and his wife emphasizes the

In the story “Cathedral”, author, Raymond Carver, show the readers that a person does not need their eyes to see as sight has a deeper meaning for different people. Within the story, the narrator, husband, describe his experience with his wife’s longtime friend Robert, a blind man who came to visit after losing his own wife to cancer. The story takes place in the husband’s home somewhere in the East Coast near Connecticut. As the husband has a drink and waits for his wife’s arrival with Robert, the husband shows an uneasiness about Robert being blind. Upon their arrival, the husband notices how joyful and happy his wife is with Robert and does not understand why. Inside the home, the husband and Robert had a few drinks accompanied with light conversation until dinner where the husband is impressed at how the Robert can describe the foods there are eating. After the dinner, the husband leaves to the couch to watch T.V. The wife and Robert join the husband him shortly after. After the wife falls asleep on the couch, the husband stops on a channel where they speak of Cathedrals and the blind man want him to describe it. Unable to use descriptive word to help Robert see, Robert asks the husband to draw the Cathedral on a paper thick enough so Robert can feel the lines. Robert joins hands with the husband as he draws on the paper and begins to visualize what a cathedral looks like while the husband has an insight on how to see through the eyes of a blind person, so to speak. The

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”, the short story is told by a character within the story. The first-person point of view gives us a transparent visual of an important time in the narrators’ life. The narrator, who is “un-named” in the beginning of the story, uses blunt, flawless and a particular choice of words. This gives us as the reader a deeper connection with the narrator. The narrator begins this story by taking us through the changes he go through with the uneasy feeling of having a blind-man coming to his house to visit.

Being different from other people is difficult to deal with in life, yet, we judge people who are different from us. Robert, a blind man, from a short story called, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a wonderful book and a life lesson story. Robert is a blind man who had a strong friendship with Bub’s wife. Bub is the husband and isn’t really that type of person anyone would get along with.Throughout the story bub wasn’t very fond of Robert because he would get jealous that his wife would be more interested towards Robert. Robert and bub’s wife were best friends before bub married her. Roberts personality was interesting and a person who you would want to know in life. Throughout the end of the story, Carver, the author, sends a heartwarming message to the audience that can change your view in things in life. In the story, Robert was very easy going, shady and creative.

I enjoyed reading “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. The story is realistic, relatable, and meaningful. The main protagonist, Bub, is arrogant and superficial. Because of Robert’s intimate relationship with his wife, he does not like the blind man. To cover up the fact that he is jealous, he states that he never had a blind man in his house before and that Robert does not have the characteristics he thought blind people have. Robert does not wear glasses, has a beard and etc. On page 90 he says, “I always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind.” This shows that even before he met Bub, he already had some preconceived picture of Bub that hinders him from really getting to know the real Bub. However, towards the end of the story he seems

“Cathedral” by Carver isn’t a story that immediately grabbed my attention. By the way that the story is written to the actual story itself, it was missing something that made me want to continue reading it at first, but then I realized that there is a purpose for it being that way. I felt disconnected because that’s how the husband felt. This story had more to it than the author lead on. After looking back at the story I realized that although one of the characters is blind, it’s actually two that were blind and the second being the husband.

In the “Cathedral,” Raymond Carver tried to portray two different aspects of blindness; one is a person who physically unable to see the world due to lack of eyes and other aspect concerns about narrator’s and his wife’s blindness who are not blind physical but socially and emotionally. In this story, there are various metaphors of blindness. One example of which is a blind person helping the other person (who is not visually impaired) to draw cathedral even though he hasn't seen one. Blindness is not a physical inability of a person; it's beyond than that. In the “Cathedral,” Robert wasn’t the one that was blind however, the narrator was blind.

Often as apart of the Hero's journey, the main character or characters undergo a journey in which the way they see the world is changed. In Raymond Carver’s ‘Cathedral’, the narrator is troubled by Robert’s, his wife’s friend, visit and blindness. Through the narrative the narrator obliviousness is transformed. ‘A General in the Library’ By Italo Calvino, demonstrates how General Fedina and his officials overcome censorship and suppression through knowledge and the transformative power of books. In ‘A General in the Library’ By Italo Calvino and Raymond Carver’s ‘Cathedral’, both protagonists undergo obstacles resulting in a change of perspective after impromptus event that alters their lives and precipitates an

In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver which shows a narrators insight and reflection of himself by gaining better perspective and knowledge of Robert. At first the narrator's attitude towards Robert coming to visit his wife exhibits a lot of close-mindedness. He purely judges the fact that Robert is blind and how his only idea of blindness comes from “movies” (Carver 105). The narrator initially is fearful of meeting a blind man due to his experience of never meeting one. Before meeting Robert, the narrator and his wife get in a argument. The narrator goes on to say “I don’t have any blind friends”, which causes the wife to lash back to say “You don’t have any friends” (Carver

“Cathedral,” is an extraordinary story by Raymond Carver. It can be viewed as a plain narrative prose that describes a boring day the narrator spend with a blind man, or it can also be viewed as an iconic story which contains narrator’s invisible complaints and dissatisfactions about every aspect of the life. Raymond Carver buries two parallel lines in one story: the first for telling what is happening in the narrator’s house, and another for revealing what is changing in the narrator’s mind. However, in the story, there are much more hidden clues to imply the message it carries ---- “blind” is not a word that is only used to describe vision.

A narrator in “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a closed-minded man who suffers from prejudice against blind people. He is detached from himself, as well as from people around him. Among all themes demonstrated in this story, the most interesting aspect was relationships. In particular, the author compares the deep connection between two people and martial problems. Carver has made me to consider mane aspects and values that a family consist of.

Marriage requires effort and work. Many newlyweds come into a marriage thinking it is easy but do not consider the consequences of marriage that heavily rely on balances and partnership. Marriage is all about compromise. It is important to engage in a premarital program to allow both partners to learn what to expect within a marriage, how to face certain roadblocks, and to better communication when conflict is aroused so that divorce does not become an option. Gottman’s research (2009) has made a significant contribution to the study of relationship and marriage tying unity, harmony, and communication together to make relationship and marriage work. When a couple who does not have consummate love (intimacy, passion, and commitment), they often portray the six indicators of divorce: harsh startup, the Four Horsemen, flooding, body language, failed repair attempts and reflecting on bad memories (Gottman, 2009). Divorce often occurs within the first two years of marriages and almost half of divorces end within the first seven years (Bhutto-Ramirez, 2015).

Despite revealing the inequality in society for women, Margaret tries to put an end to the inequality between men and women by describing marriages where both partners are mutually respected. For example, she feels that the ideal marriage is “one of mutual esteem, mutual dependence. Their talk is of business, their affection shows itself by practical kindness” (739). Fuller believes that “mutual esteem” and “mutual dependence” lead to a relationship of equality between a man and woman. She also believes that the couple must not only have mutuality but “affection” in order to maintain equality. In addition, she feels marriages of mutuality and mutuality and affection “meet mind to mind, and a mutual trust is excited, which can buckler them against a million” (742). The author uses this passage to show that

Raymond Carver’s characters were considered to be very much like him: “’on the edge: of poverty, alcoholic self-destruction, loneliness” (Mays 32). His short story “Cathedral” is about a young couple, who have a visitor coming to stay with them. This visitor, Robert, is the wife’s friend, and he is blind. The narrator, the husband, has never met someone who is blind, was bothered by that. To him, being blind meant constantly needing help from others. His depiction of blindness was what he has seen in the movies. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit… A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to,” he tells the reader (Carver 32). His wife on the other hand, was very happy to see her old friend. She had worked for Robert

Relationships are can be very important for a person’s happiness or may have in some ways thought to be important for happiness. One thing that is thought to make a person happy is marriage. Even though marriage has a great influence on a person’s life it doesn’t make them necessarily happy (Stein A37-A40). A person that is married is generally someone who was already happy but if a person is unsociable or lonely the person may become happier. Marriage can make a person less happy if they expect too much of the other person or think that the person is perfect. A person may become happier by having close relationships and acting kind and grateful but to remain happy the person needs to keep doing these actions and continuing these relationships to continue being happy (Wallis A2-A9). As a child a person must make many relationships to be successful resilient. If a person is abused as a child the person does not have good relationship and may not always grow up happy. If a child has someone to support or encourage the child they will be more likely to be happy this person is called a champion (Gorman A52-A55). A person that has a negative attitude can cause bad relationships and can also cause others to be unhappy. Because of this idea a person must choose a person that can be