The Importance Of View In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

In the short story, Cathedral by Raymond Carver, the word “blind” acquires different meanings. The unnamed narrator is metaphorically blind; he can look at the surface of everything but not see what is inside. Although the narrator can listen to conversations, he cannot understand the deeper emotional context the conversation might hold, compared to Robert, who is visually impaired but can truly listen and understand. It is not until the end of the story that the narrator metaphorically opens his eyes, with assistance from Robert.

Sometimes we have to look beyond what we see on the outside to understand something more deeply. In the short story Cathedral By Raymond Carver, the narrator has an attitude of being selfish, and jealous through the story. The narrator’s wife invites a blind man, Robert, to come stay in their house for a short time while the man visits family members of his own wife who recently passed. The narrator is not enthusiastic because blind people make the narrator uncomfortable, mainly because the narrator has no real experience with the blind. In addition, to his uneasiness with the blind the narrator is uncomfortable with the relationship his wife and the blind man have. The wife and Robert, the blind man, have maintained a close

Blindness is not limited to physical manifestation. In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the figurative blindness is immediately apparent through the narrator and his shallowness, irrational jealousy, and egotistical personality. His dismissive behavior and ignorance towards the feelings of Robert, his wife’s blind friend, speak negatively of his character and reveals his insecurities. While the narrator’s emotional blindness and Robert’s physical blindness initially inhibits their bond, it eventually leads the narrator to an epiphany and the beginning of a character transformation. The different forms of blindness allow the characters to bond and grow over the course of the story.

The Story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is about true blindness and the effects of emotional contact. Peterson studies the use of determiners, a and the, that refer to the blind man in the story and its effects to establish the atmosphere of the story. He states that the change in determiner seems subtle, but these subtle changes are significant because the changes show how narrator feel about Robert throughout the story. Nesset studies the sexual polices and the love lives in several Carver’s stories. He discusses how Carver wrote his stories based on less of love and more of love withdrawal. Also Facknitz addresses rediscovery of human worth and the effects of emotional touch by discussing three short stories written by Carver. He analyses each narration of the narrator and comments based on psychological manner. The story “Cathedral” suggests the meaning of true blindness does not only refer to physical disability; it refers to those people who cannot see the world from other’s perspectives and it can be overcome through emotional contact.

In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the husband's view of blind men is changed when he encounters his wife's long time friend, Robert. His narrow minded views and prejudice thoughts of one stereotype are altered by a single experience he has with Robert. The husband is changed when he thinks he personally sees the blind man's world. Somehow, the blind man breaks through all of the husband's jealousy, incompetence for discernment, and prejudgments in a single moment of understanding.

“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.

Furthermore, the title of the short story has symbolic representation to the transformation the narrator partakes as the story ends. Specifically, when the narrator begins to explain the cathedral on the TV and is unable to describe it with detail to Robert, shows how blind he is even though he is able to look at the things show in the program. In the short story, Robert suggests to the narrator to work together on drawing a cathedral to better illustrate it. As both hold on to the pen and trace the cathedral unto the piece of paper bag, Robert is able to visualize it in his mind; the narrator, on the other hand, gets to a point in his life where he realizes that he is now able to see, rather than just look at something, and is able to understand its meaning, as he states “it was like nothing else in my life up to now…my eyes were still closed.” Here, the narrator recognizes that even though his eyes were closed, as if he was blind, he is able to tell how immensely and detailed cathedrals are.

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.

The idea of blindness in Carver’s Cathedral gains additional meaning throughout the story as we learn more about the character Robert and the blind man himself. The story begins in first person, depicting Roberts disdain for the blind and his smallness of character. As a juxtaposition we are introduced to the blind man who is evolved in character, and has a substantially important relationship with Roberts’s wife. As the story progresses and Robert has more interaction with the blind man, he himself begins to evolve through time spent while his wife is asleep. As the story comes to an end, the blind man has affected the character of Robert to the point that his inward blindness has been exposed. This story shows that blindness does not necessarily

When one visualizes a prophet or a messiah, the common image is a man in a pure white robe holding a dove or an old man with a staff and scraggly clothes. However, how often does a man in brown slacks and a sports coat come to mind? After reading Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” such an image may certainly appear more often, especially when thinking about the character Robert. In “Cathedral,” Robert the blind man is portrayed as a spiritual guide to the narrator through character and plot development. Robert is portrayed as a spiritual guide through the use of the blind seer motif.

The act of looking is related to physical vision while the act of seeing involves an enhanced understanding of what it means to truly exist. In the short story “Cathedral”, the narrator is blind to appreciating the human experience until he meets a blind man who ironically becomes the one who teaches him how to see in a way he never knew how. The author Raymond Carver uses symbolism within this story to reinforce the theme of blindness, and the difference between looking and seeing.

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 narrator is quite obviously the character that Carver wants us to see as figuratively "blind." There is a stark contrast in the blind man and the

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

“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story that focuses on sight, it specifically highlights vision by demonstrating how it requires a much deeper engagement. The narrator, who Robert calls “Bub,” is astonishingly shortsighted or “blind” while Robert (the actual blind man) is insightful and perceptive. Bub assumes that he is superior to Robert because he has his sight. He also assumes that Robert is unable to make a female happy, nor lead a normal life. Bub is convinced his ability to see is everything but ironically enough, he fails see beyond the surface of things which is why he doesn’t know his wife adequately. However, Robert sees much deeper than the narrator despite his inability to look at the surface. This ability to look deeper helps him understand, he does so by listening and touching. 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 mirror his views of 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.