Cathedral Raymond Carver Analysis

The husband of course was not sure about this because he didn’t even know the man. He didn’t know why they contacted each other so much or why he was coming. The wife and husband had been through hardships the past couple of years and it seemed like the blind man was what was keeping his wife going. They were in the living room having conversations and to the husband it seemed like all of the talk was all about the blind man. There was no talk about the husband and it seems like he just felt like he was left out. They had been in contact for so long and the husband honestly just kind of held a grudge toward the blind man. Much of the talk the whole night was about the blind man and what he had done and accomplished and it just set the husband on ease. Just the little things such as turning the T.V. on set his wife into a rage and the husband just didn’t know what to do. As the night went on they had supper and multiple drinks and were now just in the living room having conversations. The husband and the blind man slowly started to conversate more and more about different things and the wife was getting tired. The two were watching T.V. and just starting communicating a much better whenever the husband's wife had stepped out to change into a robe because she was getting tired. The husband began coming more relaxed and was just feeling more comfortable. They joked and discussed what was going on T.V.. The wife had finally come back and sat between them a gradually fell asleep as they were watching

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 the beginning the narrator is un-named, we read the story as thoughts within his mind. His actions gives-off a sense of jealousy. He’s bothered by the former relationship the blind-man and his wife has had in the past. He is blunt and honest with (us) in telling how he feels about the situation. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me.” “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.” The narrator gives us the introduction to the life event. He tells us about his wife and how she met the blind-man. In short, she formally worked for him, reading him things when she lived in Seattle for a summer. The narrator mentioned when the blind-man touched around his wife face and her current marriage with her childhood sweetheart. Her husband at the time was in the military –industry, which caused her to have to move a lot. She and the blind-man kept in touch by sending voice recorded

As soon as the story begins, we are told that the narrator is not happy about the upcoming visit from his wife’s blind friend, Robert. The narrator states “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit,” “[Robert] being blind bothered me”, and “a blind

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 is a short story written by Raymond Carver in 1983, about a prejudiced man who meets a disabled man. Through “Cathedral,” it becomes clear that the visit of the blind man Robert in the narrator’s house may change the narrator from stereotyping to accepting disabled people; this illustrates Carver’s theme which displays human insensitivity through the narrator’s reluctance because of fear, then acceptance, and finally understanding of Robert.

A lot of the time, the bias of the world interferes with the perception of others and the way they are viewed, leaving out the realistic factor of how that person’s personality actually is. We make assumptions based on what we were taught growing up, and the experiences we’ve had in life. In the short story, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver the narrators bias led him to believe that the blind man who was visiting his wife will be nothing but an awkward person who is incapable of doing things on his own. Throughout the story the narrator, learns through multiple experiences that the blind man is not that different from him, and that he can do almost everything an un-handicapped person could do in their daily life.

At the beginning of the story the husband is telling of a blind man coming to visit him and his wife. The narrator?s wife had worked for the blind man at one point. Since then they have maintained a strong friendship and keep in touch with tapes. The narrator talks about not looking forward to the blind

Cathedral is a capitivating story based on the lives of the narrator, his wife and a blind man. Raymond Carver is the author of this story, and he does an excellent job allowing the reader to delve into the lives of these characters. Through using the thoughts of the narrator, the reader is able to grab our attention because the story is made more realistic. The views expressed by the narrator in many senses exemplify the views of many in society and therefore the reader is able to make an emotional connection through the story.

“My wife looked at me with irritation. She was heading towards a boil. The she looked at the blind man and said, ‘Robert, do you have a TV?’” (Carver 37) The main character’s wife was important because she consistently tried to make her blind guest feel welcomed and facilitate to her husband that Robert, though he was blind, was still an able man. She was an asset for this story to unfold. The reader can conclude that without her help in the beginning, the two men, particularly the main character, would find it difficult to start a civilized conversation. Although it took some assistance, the protagonist started unfolding after dinner, when the two men where left along to talk, drink, and smoke. It is noticeable how he went from resentful to more open as time went by. When the two men were watching television alone, the main character patiently kept Robert up to date on what was going on. Within such a short period of time, the main character’s heart towards Robert was notably altered from the beginning where he was distant and quiet to the middle and towards the end where he appeared more vulnerable and

In Raymond Carver’s story “Cathedral” there are many signs of prejudice, jealousy, misunderstandings and eventually what may appear to possibly be a development of friendship. There is a fair amount of preconceived judgment made by the narrator in regards to an old friend coming to visit his wife. At the beginning of the story the narrator refers to the old friend as “the blind man” (Carver 455) and makes it clear that he “wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit.” (456) Although, the narrator embarks into unknown territory while preparing for the visit and while engaging with a blind man during his stay, he finds himself seeing the world in a new light.

The notion of possessing an intrinsic bias is introduced in Raymond Carver’s Cathedral. He highlights how perception can affect the way people interact and communicate with each other for the first time. In the short story, the narrator himself is blind to the emotions of the people around him and eschews any form of self-reflection until the very end. He is envious of the blind man, who shares an intimate relationship with the narrator’s wife. However, the blind man is depicted as insightful and personal. Carver discloses in Cathedral that Robert, the blind man, and the narrator’s wife had been exchanging audiotapes for years, sharing their experiences and difficulties with one another.

Cathedral by Raymond Carver is a fictional piece of literature about a spiritually blind man and a blind man that is spiritually insight. The incongruity between these two personas extends towards the entire story until the final phase where, the narrator empirically comes into contact with an epiphany and opens a third eye to a world he has never explored. Helen Keller once mentioned, “it’s tragic to have sight, but no vision” this quote alludes perfectly to Carvers’ story, which symbolizes the misfortune of being able to perceive appearances and not reality.

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

The short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver depicts the social isolation experienced by an unnamed male narrator caused by his lack of empathy and understanding. The narrator’s short sighted opinions concerning his wife, her friend Robert, and Robert’s late wife, Beulah are what give insight into his character and the attitudes he possesses. “Cathedral” is told through the narrator’s informal and limited first-person perspective to emphasize the emotional divide between himself and those around him, while also echoing the author’s minute personal connection to the narrator.