Response To Raymond Carver's Cathedral

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

This story is about how the narrator is unable to see what life is really giving him and finds it through a blind man’s eyes, the friend of his wife. Cathedral is a touching story, in my opinion, as it reflects on what many of us, society, take for granted. It shows how important it is to give people a

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” the narrator is seen to show ignorance and bias towards blindness throughout the story, however towards the end he realizes his flaws and the difference between looking and seeing. From the beginning of the story to the end you can see a change within the narrator after his encounter with the blind man. At the end of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” the narrator hopes to accomplish a change in his understanding of himself, and his experience with Robert flickers this change towards the end of the story.

"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.

The narrator in “The Cathedral” begins the story with the issue of hesitation in seeing the light. The light in this story just like the light in Plato’s “Myth of the Cave” represents reality. The narrator expresses the fear of expressing reality when he said “ I wasn’t

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.

These Cathedrals I believe represent people, so this shows that even the narrator realizes that he’s never been able to see any further than someone’s outer look and has always been the type of person to judge someone or interact with someone solely based on what they look like on the outside. while Robert is the opposite and even though he’s interested on what the Cathedrals look like architecturally he is more interested on what they look like on the inside and what they represent which is how he views people as well. Robert realizes that the narrator has had trouble not being able to see people for how they truly are and wants to help him see them as he does. It is when Robert has the Narrator close his eyes and draw a cathedral with him that the narrator is focusing on something other than what it looks like and more so on what it “feels” like for the first time in his life. I believe that Robert’s hope for him is finally realized when the Narrator keeps his eyes closed when told to look at the drawing and exclaims “it really is something” showing that he is really looking at

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

Psychologically, he’s conflicted about Robert, due to how he believed Robert to be, but him being completely

In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator can see but Robert is blind. They both have different views on life; one can actually see the physical world and the other cannot but has the ability to see life in a more intimate and simply deeper perspective. Carver makes it his goal to open people’s eyes to see that just because someone has the ability to look at the physical world that doesn’t mean that they can really see, meaning seeing past the outer shell of things and really coming to know and learn about everything on a deeper more intimate level. Life wouldn’t be as interesting if all humans only mastered the act of looking because that would be such a plain and boring way of looking at life and the many things that come with it. After

The drawing of the cathedral will bring comfort to many readers, yet many readers will say that it stood out on its own to perceive the vision of art. But many others will say it evolves the sustained guardianship for a moment to try to occur between a stubborn man and a man who lacks vision but has a contained and elaborate mindset. Even with the narrator seeing cathedrals visually on TV, but he falls short to describe the visual image of said cathedral to Roger who lacks the sight. “How could I even begin to describe a cathedral? But say my life was being threatened by an insane guy who said I had to do it or else(Carver)”.

In “Cathedral,” Raymond Carver exhibit the different conflicts between the narrator and Robert the blind man. Raymond Carver show man vs. self, and man vs. man.

It is true that there were a little interactions between the two characters, they were brief and it was Robert trying to sustain the

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”, it tells the story of a man whose wife one summer, worked for a blind man. The blind man and the husband’s wife, kept in touch throughout the years by sending cassettes back and forth in the mail. The blind man’s wife recently died and the husband’s wife invites him to say in her home, but her husband is displeased by this request. In the beginning of the story, the husband is very rude to the blind man and finds amusement by making fun of the blind man’s disability. Throughout the story, the husband’s opinion about the blind man changes and eventually the husband puts himself into the shoes of the blind man.

At the start of the story, Carver begins by informing the reader of the hostility the narrator holds for the character, Robert. He initially shows the preexisting beliefs the narrator has for the blind man, as stated in Carver’s “Cathedral”, “And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies.” (32). The narrator has developed judgements upon other people based on their conditions, and physical appearances, and opinions of others, which “is salient in Carver’s writing because characters are typically minimally described”(1), according to Sara Kornfeld Simpson’s “Alcohol, Emotion, and Tension in Raymond Carver’s Fiction”. The assumptions Carver illustrates for the narrator are derived from ignorance and close mindedness he demonstrates towards the antagonist, Robert and the narrator’s wife. In addition, the narrator is described as being envious of the blind man and his wife’s past and current relations and communication with each other. Carver makes clear of how the contrasting personalities between the protagonist and antagonist are in regard for their fight for the love of the same woman, which alludes to an external conflict. Therefore, the narrator’s mistreatment towards the antagonist roots from insensitivity towards his blindness and his insecurity regarding his relationship with his wife.