Raymond Carver Cathedral Analysis

The narrator is not welcoming of his wife’s old friend, Robert, to his home. He categorizes Robert as part of his wife’s past, which makes him jealous and bitter towards Robert. He doesn’t care whether this visit is important to his wife, nor what role Robert has played in helping her over-come her suicide attempt and her divorce. The narrator is also jealous of his wife’s ex-husband and in the story “Cathedral” leaves him nameless, “why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?” (Carver 436). When the narrator, his wife, and Robert are sitting and conversing, the narrator is expecting his wife to talk to Robert about her “dear husband”; even though every comment he has made to his wife about Robert, and everything he does, seems to irritate and anger her.

The narrator assumes that that he is more capable of making his own wife happy than Robert simply because he can see. When the narrator makes this assumption it shows that he doesn’t know the difference between seeing and understanding something more deeply for the true meaning.

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

Bub’s epiphany helps him realize how Robert mirrors his life. The first indication of this was the jealousy he felt when his wife told him about her last day working with Robert. “On her last day last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose--even her neck! She never forgot it”(pg. 3). The narrator’s jealousy was triggered because the thought of another male touching his wife bothered him. The mere fact that it was a she could never forget, it hit him hard. This emotional reaction shows that either the narrator doesn’t connect with his wife on an intimate level or he never cared for how his wife felt intimately until she spoke of another male and how his touch was unforgettable.

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.

The husband first begins to open up to Robert when he watches with "admiration" as the blind man eats his food. He begins to see Robert as an independent man that has learned to live life despite his disability. There is a moment of connection when they all three finally begin the meal and he describes them as if they were all the same, eating the same way, intently and "seriously" (351). The husband asks to share a joint with Robert when his wife is not present, showing an indication of trust or maybe cockiness (352). Though shocked of her husband's actions, the wife joins in when she returns. When the wife has passed out between them, he commences to enjoying Robert's presence. When Robert wishes to stay up with him, listening to the television, the husband makes the

But in “A&P” Sammy’s stereotype toward the girls does not seem to change yet. The husband in “Cathedral” who’s being having a hard time making any type of connection with people, looks like he already changing as he engaged more and more with the blind man. As the husband, his wife and the blind man sat down to talk, the husband hearing them talk about the past and what had happened during the past ten years, “jealousy” kind of got into the room as the husband is paying attention to their conversation, expecting his wife to mention his name, “I wanted in vain to hear my name on my wife’s sweet lips” “And then my dear husband came into my life”- something like that. But I heard nothing of the sort” (Raymond Carver 77), and this was not the first sign of jealousy expressed in the story “She'd worked with this blind man all summer. She read stuff to him, case studies… They'd become good friends my wife and the blind man. How do I know these things? She told me. And she told me something else. On her last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he ran his fingers over every part of her face, her nose--even her neck! She never forgot it… usually after something really important happened to her” (Raymond Carver 77). Clearly he is jealous, and so emphasizes the eroticism of the blind man's touch.

Ability to see is the only thing that matters to the narrator and he didn't even try to see the things beyond the surface, that's why he doesn't really know his wife well. Robert, on the other hand, is the one who has the ability to “see” on a much deeper level than the narrator. In the story, the only conversation happened between the narrator and his wife were mean trades in which the narrator does minimal more than irritate her. Robert understands narrator's wife more profoundly than the narrator despite the fact that Robert can't physically see narrator's wife.

The narrator from Raymond Carver’s ‘Cathedral’, lived a clouded state of mind where his thoughts kept him from reaching the pellucid reality. Through the beginning of the narrative, the narrator expresses his harsh and judgmental opinions about blindness- which represents his incapacity and closed-mindedness to see beyond him. Later on his perspective is changed thanks to a sudden events. The narrator, which has no given name, is bothered by the impending visit of his wife’s blind friend, Robert. The narrator’s wife used to work for Robert from which they developed a relationship and inspired the wife to write poems about it. They, the wife and Robert, have maintained a constant communication through mailed tapes. All of these added up more to the narrator’s dislike for Robert. For example, when the narrator express his desconstest towards Robert’s disability: “And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies” (‘Cathedral’, Raymond Carver). Here the narrator’s narrowness and lack of sympathy is palpable. He is simple and superficial. Lives in a 2D way, is incapable of bearing a thought outside the box, and explore the depths of life in general. He is unhappy with his current work position but does nothing to change that fact. That’s until Robert’s visit. This is changed once the narrator gets to know Robert and Robert opens the narrator’s mind to life seen through another pair of eyes. For instance, after dinner is over, the narrator and Robert are watching a documentary about cathedrals. Suddenly, the narrator wonders if Robert has any knowledge of how cathedrals look like. There is where their journey begins. Robert ask to the narrator to draw a cathedral for him and request the narrator to add specific details (people, etc.). “So we kept on it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over

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.

"Cathedral" is a short story ultimately about enlightment, finding something more meaningful and deeper with in one self. Although from an observing point of view nothing more in the story happens then a blind man assisting the narrator in drawing a cathedral. Although as known, the narrator's experience radically differs from what is actually "observed". He is enlightened and opened up to a new world of vision and imagination. This brief experience will have a life long effect on him. The reason for this strong and positive effect is not so much the relationship made between the blind man and the narrator or even the actual events leading up to this experience, but rather it is mostly due to what was drawn by the narrator.

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

The story opens with the narrator giving a background of his wife and Robert. Immediately, it is easy for the audience to form a negative opinion about the narrator. Within the first paragraph of the story he says, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (Carver 33). This exemplifies his pre-formed opinion about Robert even though he hardly knows anything about him. He clearly is uncomfortable with the fact that Robert is blind, mainly based on his lack of exposure to people with disabilities. The narrator is very narrow-minded for most of this story, making it easy to initially dislike him.

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