Raymond Carver's Short Stories

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.

“I could tell you about something that happened when you were a baby. It involves you,

Carver lived most of his life in a world which could not provide the luxury of

Lives are diverse. Every being that passes by on the street, at school, at work, anywhere lives a completely unique life different from any other individual. Each person that one could meet has attended different schools, travelled to different places, and lived under different circumstances; they all pass by in an instant without a second thought or even a passing glance. These several diverse experiences sculpt diverse individuals with diverse thoughts, opinions, dreams, and motives. However, in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the narrator must converse with an individual that lives an extremely dissimilar life from his own. A blind man, friends with the narrator’s wife and a recent widower, has come to live with the narrator for a while. This sudden change in the narrator’s life does not come easy because of his inherent arrogance and prejudice. Nevertheless, the blind man remains polite and shows the narrator how similar, yet still different their lives are through example as well as an explicit exercise where he holds the narrator’s hands while he draws a cathedral in order to “see” what the cathedral looks like. To assist the reader in fully grasping the impact of this breakthrough in the narrator’s life regarding perspective and various types of human realities, Carver employs a large number of stylistic elements to enhance his writing.

With a unique and brilliant style of writing, Raymond Carver has left a lasting and outstanding impact on the history of short stories. Even though Raymond Carver left a long impact, his life was of the opposite. Like Raymond Carver’s famous award winning stories, his life was short. Raymond Carver was born on May 25th, 1938 in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mill town on the Columbia River. Carver grew up in Yakima, Washington. Carver had three members to his small family, his mother, his father, and brother. Carver’s only had one sibling, his younger brother, James Franklin Carver. Carver’s mother worked as a waitress and a retail clerk while Carver’s father worked as a fisherman and a saw mill worker. Many say that a skilled sawmill worker and

In the short story “Cathedral”, written by Raymond Carver, the story is told through the narrator’s eyes as the audience gains insight on his perspective of his life and, more specifically, his views on his wife and her blind friend. The narrator’s name is never mentioned throughout the story, but his personality and initial narrow-minded bias towards his wife’s friend Robert depicts his character traits. Throughout the story he does not seem to change his views, but once he experiences Robert’s point of view in his life, the narrator changes his perspective. This suggests the narrator is a dynamic character in the story due to his change after getting to know Robert.

Typically a story begins with an exposition, which introduces the characters, setting and plot. In the short story ?Popular Mechanics? by Raymond Carver, the exposition is excluded. The story begins with a short rise in action, moves quickly to the climax and totally omits the resolution. Carver uses third person objective narration to reveal the actions and the dialogue between a man and a woman. The narrator gives very little descriptive details, never revealing the characters? thoughts or their motivation. This allows the reader the freedom to interpret and develop their own opinions of the setting, plot, and characters of the story. This also stimulates the reader to

In literature, authors may get inspiration from real life events. For Raymond Carver, rather than writing about his own life, he wrote fictional stories, poems and books, but each can relate to his personal experiences. Alcohol plays a dominant part in Carver’s life, from child to adult. Due to this, his texts revolve around alcohol in some form, most often an alcoholic main character. Through Carver’s writing, he displays family tensions often as a result of alcoholism. Sara Kornfeld Simpson, instructor at Boston University, states that in Carver’s short stories “alcohol serves as a social lubricant that diminishes inhibitions, which allows hidden tensions and emotions to emerge.” (Simpson). Raymond Carver’s personal experience with alcoholism led him to create fictional texts that revolve around alcohol and have characters that may reflect his personal life, leading into his career as a writer.

In Carver's story, the reader fully understands the main character. In the story, the reader gets insights into the narrator's view on the blind man. the reader can tell by the narrator's comments about listening to the blind

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

In the story the old man is telling this young woman a story of her childhood and it is a very short story. The point of his short story is to get straight to the point and to teach the young woman that things change in your life and that sometimes you can’t help it. By telling the girl this story he is not only telling her a personal event that happened to him in his past but also teaching a valuable lesson to life. Raymond is getting his point across not just by getting straight to the point but by creating a frame story where the old man tells the story so it is more sentimental. Raymond Carver is a unique writer and creates great stories with his style of

Raymond Carver the author of “Cathedral” the narrator in this story has some prejudices, against blind people as well as so discomfort and jealousy towards Robert who is his wife long friend and confidence. In spite of how the narrator feel about Robert he does exactly what his wife asked him to do, helps to make Robert feel comfortable. This is where the reader can see the narrator had integrity. He puts his own person feeling behind him and does everything he can for Robert. For example, making sure Robert understands what's on television. We see leadership and integrity in Robert as well, Robert isn’t just a blind man, he is a man that has seen the world and a person who works with what he was giving and makes the best of his life that he

This bitterness and sarcasm is revealed as strong characteristics of the narrator. Throughout the majority of the story, the narrator continues shows his distaste for any "happy" situation. Much like the hyphenated asides, Carver implements fragmented sentences behind description, to show the narrator pausing for a moment of color commentary.

   To a reader unfamiliar with his work, Raymond Carver's short story, "Little Things" may seem devoid of all literary devices owning to good writing. Fortunately, these people are mistaken. With his minimalistic style, it is what Carver doesn't write that makes his work so effective. Most of Carver's short stories describe situations that many people could find themselves in and that is why his work is so appealing to readers. They are not restricted to harsh explicative details or over-dramatized language, but are allowed to create their own rationale for the actions of the characters and the consequent results.

This week I submerge myself in Raymond Carver's short stories, here I share some thoughts on the story I chose and answer the following questions as well.