The Narrator In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

In the short story, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, it all began when the narrator’s wife invites her blind friend Robert over to visit her and her husband. Her husband has normal vision, but in the beginning of the story, he is the one that is blind. For example, he is close minded and stereotypical about this blind man arriving at their home. The husband’s words and actions when dealing with Robert is that the husband is uncomfortable, awkward, and mean. As the story progresses, we can see a change in the husband, and he seems to connect with Robert.

The main character or narrator in the Cathedral was not only jealous of the relationship between his wife and her friend (the blind man); moreover, he had not seen him in person and did not appreciate the idea that he was actually spending the night at their house. However, after the narrator’s encounter with Robert, he perceives that he was not what he expected him to be; instead, he was gentle and friendly. On the other hand, the main character or narrator in everyday use was outspoken and straightforward, explaining about her surroundings and what had transpired in her life. From harsh labor to the different circumstances, she had faced in her lifetime; she also talks about her daughters who had different personalities.

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.

“Cathedral” represents the theme of how important communication is to the success of relationships. First, when the man finds out the woman’s blind friend is coming he makes many rude comments. As a result, the woman then starts to attack the man personally by saying, “You don’t have any friends” (Carver, “Cathedral” 34). Due to their poor communication, the man cannot simply express that he is insecure that her friend is coming, and he also cannot tell his wife that he believes Robert will be a burden because he is blind. Likewise, the man

The ending of the “Cathedral” does not exactly show what happens after the events that unfolded. The “Cathedral” doesn’t show what the narrator has accomplished towards the ending, but does show a spark of change within him. As the narrator keeps his eyes closed even after Robert tells him to open them this further explains what the narrator is experiencing. The narrator’s meeting with Robert allowed him to listen for once and develop a sense of compassion for the blind and eliminate his bias. The narrator also loses his sense of jealousy for Robert, as he was jealous of Robert since he was so close to his wife. Since the narrator really didn’t know his wife he developed insecurities within himself and any situation that deals with her that can be seen when the narrator as he just categorizes Robert as another person apart of her past. When he leaves his eyes closed this allows the narrator to truly see as he was “blind” to compassion and what the world was really made of. It allowed him to

In “The Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, a man named Robert is coming to spend the night at the narrator’s house. Robert is a friend of the narrator’s wife who happens to be blind, which doesn’t sit well with the narrator. Robert and his wife have a ten year relationship which started with her working for him. Since then they’ve stayed in contact by sending audiotapes to each other. When Robert reaches the house, the narrator is a bit uncomfortable. The first reason being because the man is blind, and secondly he’s not really sure what to say to a man who has a past with his wife. Soon after, the narrator sees that Robert isn’t initially what he thought the man would be like. Robert’s suggestion for the narrator to close his eyes while drawing the cathedral creates a different perspective for him, which allows him to realize it is he who is limited and cannot see, not Robert.

In almost every story there is a meaning, whether that meaning is obvious or not is up to the readers’ interpretations. In some stories, that meaning hides behind a character, how that person acts, thinks, or express themselves and how they change throughout resembling growth. In Raymond Carver’s “The Cathedral”, the unnamed husband narrators the tale of his wife’s old blind friend Robert coming to visit after not seeing each other for years. They had remained in contact through audiotapes, but the husband seems to not understand the significance of their relationship, showing distaste with the visit for the majority of the story, due to his uncomfortableness. In this story, the writer displays his tale and its morals; by using the narration of the husband; Carver shows that there comes to be more meaning behind this bitter man that meets the eye, which argues the fact that perhaps this unlikable narrator is truly the antihero.

One of these main lessons I believe was that there is a difference between physically seeing and perceptively seeing. Although Robert was not able to see things physically like the narrator, he was able to perceive things in a way that the narrator could not. This could be seen when it came to Robert and the narrator's wife. Even though the Robert was unable to see the narrator's wife, he could perceptively see her, understand her, and listen to her in a way the narrator was unable to. He understood her problems and poetry, and give her companionship in a way that the husband did not see that she needed. From the beginning of the story, the narrator gave the impression that he believed he was better than the blind man because he had physical sight. After realizing the blind man understood his wife more and during the last moments when the two of them drew a cathedral together, the narrator's perspective changed.

The story follows the narrator and his wife who has invited her old friend to stay at their home because his wife has just passed away. The friend, Robert, is blind and the narrator’s wife worked for him as a reader ten years prior. They remained close and kept in touch by sending audiotapes to one another, recounting what was going on in their lives. Robert’s blindness makes the narrator uncomfortable and he does not look forward to his visit, even though it is quite important to his wife. The three spend a somewhat awkward evening together and the narrator become more comfortable with Robert as the night progresses and as his wife falls asleep. The narrator gains some compassion for Robert and attempts to describe what the cathedral on the

This seems to unsettle the husband, as he notices that his wife has a stronger connection with Robert than they have in their marriage. The husband is blind to his wife’s feelings and needs in their relationship, and this lack of communication between them has affected their marriage. His wife wrote a poem about her experience with the blind man touching her face, and he brushed it off by stating that, “[He] can remember not thinking much about the poem” (33). The blind man however acts as an outlet for the wife to vent about her feelings which forms a close bond between the two. Robert can understand the speaker’s wife in a way that the speaker clearly is not able to. The narrator mentions that he believes Robert’s wife, Beluah, must have led a miserable life because she, “could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loves one. A woman who could never go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved” (34). He believes that the blind man’s wife must have suffered due to his inability to see her, yet the narrator has never even truly seen his own wife. Robert’s friendship with the speaker’s wife is what his own marriage is lacking due to not being able to recognize that his wife needs an emotional connection with him.

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.

In the beginning of the story, the husband, who is the narrator of “Cathedral,” seems to be a very ignorant, uncaring man. Nesset wrote “Walled in by his own insecurities and prejudices, this narrator is sadly out of touch with his world and with himself, buffered by drink and pot and by the sad reality, as his wife puts it, that he has no ‘friends’” (Nesset 124). The narrator has no connection to himself or the outside world. He has no friends, as his wife points out, which goes to show he keeps to himself, but he still doesn’t fully understand who “himself” is, because he doesn’t have that connection to himself, thus leading to the drinking and drugs. He wasn’t used to change, so having a visitor come over to his house bothered him. The moment he saw Robert, the narrator began to change. When his wife pulled up with the blind man in the car and they got out of the car, he saw that Robert had a beard and he thought to himself, “This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say” (Carver 35). The narrator had expected to see the blind man in the way they showed them in the movies, but now that his idea of who Robert was as a person was being challenged, the change started to appear. Robert, who is a static character, is very essential in the change of the narrator. It is because Robert is the way he is, his marrying of a colored woman, his travels around the

Never judge a book by its cover. This being said, in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” there are three main characters; the narrator, his wife, and their guest of honor, Robert. He is visiting the narrator’s wife after the passing of his own beloved wife, Beulah. Prior to their meet, the Narrator, is terribly jealous of Robert. He has grown tired of his wife consistently talking about this blindman who she used to assist with his work. She tells the Narrator that before her second marriage, Robert placed his hands on her face and it was the most sensational feeling ever. His visit brings an unwelcoming comfortability for the Narrator. How can someone be so jealous of another’s friendship? Robert is the epitome of a short story character. He