`` Cathedral `` By Raymond Carver And The Jewelry

“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story that shows the sense of sight in relation to vision, but it shows that the sense of sight requires a much deeper engagement. The narrator, who Robert calls “Bub,” is astonishingly shortsighted or “blind” while the blind man is insightful and perceptive. Bub is not blind, but Robert is. Therefore, he assumes that he is superior to Robert. His assumption correlates with his idea that Robert is unable to make a female happy, nor is he able to have a normal life. Bub is convinced his ability to see is everything. So, he fails to look deeper than the surface and is why he doesn’t know his wife adequately. However, Robert sees much deeper than the narrator, although he cannot look at the surface. Robert’s ability to look deeper helps him understand through his listing and sense of touch. Throughout Robert’s visit, the narrator reveals he is closed minded and exposes how he views life in general. Bub is clobbered and it brings him to the epiphany that his views about Robert are actually a mirror image of how he views his life. His epiphany is shown through the author's use of appearance vs reality, irony, and vernacular dialogue; which shows Bub’s preconceived notations, the connection formed between Bub and Robert, and how out of obliviousness Bub gained insight.

In the short story, Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, the author uses imagery, symbolism and narrates the story in first person point of view. The Cathedral’s main theme is being able to identify the difference between being able to look and/or see and it is portrayed through the main characters role in the story. Carver uses a unique style of writing which gives the short story a simple way for the reader to understand the story’s theme.

“Cathedral” represents the theme of how important communication is to the success of relationships. First, when the man finds out the woman’s blind friend is coming he makes many rude comments. As a result, the woman then starts to attack the man personally by saying, “You don’t have any friends” (Carver, “Cathedral” 34). Due to their poor communication, the man cannot simply express that he is insecure that her friend is coming, and he also cannot tell his wife that he believes Robert will be a burden because he is blind. Likewise, the man

Raymond Carver utilizes his character of the husband, who is also the narrator, in his short story "Cathedral." From the beginning of the story the narrator has a negative personality. He lacks compassion, has a narrow mind, is detached emotionally from others, and is jealous of his wife's friendship with a blind man named Robert. He never connects with anyone emotionally until the end of this story.

In both “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, and “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri, dysfunctional relationships are introduced between two characters; however, these relationships are greater in depth than a simple conflict and develop over time. Carver’s story begins with the narrator’s wife informing him of her close relations with Robert – the blind man – along with the many personal things she has shared with Robert; personal things consisting of her “[decision] to live away from her officer,” and later her divorce (Carver 35). This influenced the narrator’s reluctance to accept Robert, but the faith from the cathedral overpowered his distant behavior. Whereas, Lahiri creatively provokes dysfunction by illustrating misconceptions of a single word, “romantic”. Mrs. Das, a woman drowned in guilt and unhappiness refers to her tour guide’s – Mr. Kapasi – alternate job as an interpreter to be romantic; on the other hand, Kapasi, a man who longs for affection from a woman misunderstands her sudden interest for a physical and emotional attraction. Robert and the narrator’s relationship is more impactful than Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi because the narrator reaches an ultimate epiphany with the help of Robert.

“Cathedral” depicts a husband and a wife as they prepare and entertain a friend of the wife. The husband, the narrator, is not excited about the friend coming because he is blind. The blind man and the wife have been friends for longer than the husband has known the wife creating a complex and slightly jealous dynamic between the three characters. For the

What attitudes define the narrator throughout much of the story? What is his attitude toward his wife, toward Robert, toward his own experience and the experience of others? The short story “Cathedral” written by Raymond Carver is about a blind widower, his good friend and old employee, and the good friend’s husband. The narrator of the story is the husband of the widower’s friend and the thoughts and feelings from him portray a man who is fearful of the unknown.

The story follows the narrator and his wife who has invited her old friend to stay at their home because his wife has just passed away. The friend, Robert, is blind and the narrator’s wife worked for him as a reader ten years prior. They remained close and kept in touch by sending audiotapes to one another, recounting what was going on in their lives. Robert’s blindness makes the narrator uncomfortable and he does not look forward to his visit, even though it is quite important to his wife. The three spend a somewhat awkward evening together and the narrator become more comfortable with Robert as the night progresses and as his wife falls asleep. The narrator gains some compassion for Robert and attempts to describe what the cathedral on the

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

In Raymond Carver's story, "Cathedral, there was a blind man named, Robert who recently lost his wife due to Cancer and he decided to visit his friend that worked for him about ten years ago. On the other hand, there's a narrator who is married to his wife and he feels like she doesn’t love him the way he loves her. His wife is happy to see the blind man that she hasn’t seen in ten years. The blind man was someone who brings up the mood in the house between the narrator and his wife since the mood goes from depression to joy of happiness. In Raymond Carver’s story, “Cathedral,” the narrator feels like his wife doesn’t love him anymore because he was jealous of her first marriage with her first love and the friendship she had with the blind

Raymond Carver’s Cathedral tells the story of a husband whose wife’s blind friend comes to spend the night. The husband and the blind man spend quality time together by watching historical programs about cathedrals on television. Since the blind man cannot see the cathedrals that the program discusses, the husband attempts to describe them to him. The husband fails to describe the cathedral to the blind man in an affective manner. Throughout the story, the husband goes on a journey to understanding why his attempt to describe the cathedral, failed. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper tells the story of a wife who is bored on her summer vacation. The wife spends time in a bedroom, journaling throughout the entire trip. She becomes intrigued by the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom, and goes on a journey to discover what is abnormal about the wallpaper. The husband in Cathedral and the wife in The Yellow Wallpaper go on a journey to discover more about themselves through a three-step process of acknowledging a problem exists, imagining what the problem could be, and understanding the problem on a psychological level.

The narrator “stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I even begin to describe it? But say my life depended on it. Say my life was being threatened by an insane guy who said I had to do it or else” (Carver 36). The narrator describes the event before just fine, with the skeletons and people dressed as the devil, but he struggles with the cathedral. It was unobtainable for him to do it, he was speechless. This is key because the narrator says he couldn't even do it if his life depended on it. The narrator could see the cathedral but could not describe it to Robert because he did not understand it. Not until he closed his eyes could he describe the cathedral, and start to close this gap between understanding what he can see versus understanding the meaning behind it. He starts to realize he's always been wrong about things and his positions which led to his epiphany of change. Carver uses his writing to paint a picture of the fulfillment of working together. The narrator says “he found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his hand over my hand. “Go ahead, bub, draw,” he said. “Draw. You’ll see. I’ll follow along with you. It’ll be okay. Just begin now like I’m telling you.You’ll see. Draw,” the blind man said” (Carver 37).

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.

The ability a person has to see is crucially taken for granted, as in “Cathedral” it is about two men who are blind, one physically, the other is psychologically blind. I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past(Clara Barton).

When contemplating whether a work of literature is worth reading, most readers look at the back cover of the book to read a short summary. Some critics look for tone and interesting plot twists, but the common reader looks for a purpose or lesson. Sure, powerful words and phrases contribute, but without the anticipation that one will gain knowledge from the story, it will be put right back on the bookshelf. Long novels with a back cover have hundreds of pages to reveal themes. However, short stories do not have nearly as much time to display a theme. In Guy de Maupassant’s The Jewelry, the main character, Lantin sees and experiences change through his life after his wife passes away. In Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to find, the grandmother’s actions cost an entire family’s life. Both stories contains a similar theme but in different ways. Despite their short time frames, Maupassant and O’Connor both reveal a similar didactic medium- nobody is perfect.