The short story “Cathedral” is written by Raymond Carver. It is being narrated
by a man whose wife invited an old friend and person she used to work for to come visit due to
his wife dying. The old friend is a blind man whose name is Robert. The author in the
“Cathedral” uses symbolism, imagery, and irony to provide more meaning to the story. The
narrator of the story has a stereotypical opinion on blind people while being blind to his own
imperfections, but he is able to start seeing it more clearly through the blind man’s eyes. As the
story goes on they are able to connect on another level and achieve their brotherhood as they sit
and talk more in-depth and when the narrator began to draw the cathedral with his eyes closed
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This object represents the relationship they formed along with compassion and understanding without having to physically see each other. Instead, it requires listening and emotions. At the beginning the narrators stereotypes caused him to be the total opposite of what the tapes had symbolized to his wife. His wife looked forward to the tapes but the narrator on the other hand became more jealous and could’ve cared less.
In addition to the symbolism, the narrator’s observation is ironic because he thinks that because he has the ability to see he brings more happiness to his wife than Robert could to his. He thinks that Robert’s wife had to be pitiful while being married to him because he was not able to see her, tell her she’s beautiful, or see the love in her eyes. It shows how the narrator views relationships, because of this, the narrator doesn’t see that Robert was able to look past the physical appearance. He could genuinely feel the heart of another and connect to them instead of it being based on their appearance. Another Irony example is used when the narrator goes from being stereotypical about blind people while being blind to his own faults, to now being able to see more clearly through his own eyes by having the help from the blind man. Afterwards, the narrator is able to see more clearly and make the connection to the blind man. He also see that the stereotypes that he originally had, not just
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
Robert and the narrator are watching a television documentary on cathedrals, hence the title, and Robert asks “…maybe you could describe one to me?” (188), because he understands what the purpose of cathedrals is, but he has no idea what they look like. The narrator attempts to describe a cathedral, but he does not know how to “…even begin to describe it.” (188). The cathedral means nothing to him, and he admits to Robert that when it comes to religion: “’I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything. Sometimes it’s hard.’” (189). When Robert suggests that they draw a cathedral together, hand over hand, the narrator becomes nervous and cautious, he is unsure what do. After a little bit, the narrator became more comfortable and “…couldn’t stop” drawing (190). The narrator then closes his eyes to finish off the drawing, and at that moment with Robert, he metaphorically opens his eyes. He does not exactly know what happened, but he knows something positively changed, he felt like “it [was] really something.” (190). He has an out of body experience, “…I didn’t feel like I was inside anything” (190), an epiphany. Carver does not entirely explain the ending or what happens next, but one can be optimistic and assume that Robert changed the narrator for the better, by making him close his eyes to
In the narrative, the author writes the story in first person point of view through an unnamed narrator which enables the reader to visualize, experience, and perceive a deeper insight into his mind. The story commences with the narrator speaking directly to the audience appearing closed-off and narrow-minded. His wife has an old friend named Robert, who happens to be blind, coming to spend the night. Right away, the reader can sense how the narrator comes off as self-absorbed. He`s only concerned about how Robert’s visit will affect him and is inconsiderate about the strong bond Robert and his wife have built over the years. The narrator also lacks self-awareness when he found himself thinking “what a pitiful life this woman must have led.” (Carver 3) The woman being Beulah, Robert`s recently deceased wife, who the narrator belittled as she married a blind man and now she “could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.” (Carver 3) Not realizing that with
Throughout the middle of the story, the narrator is discriminatory towards blind people but suddenly feels the need to make Robert feel comfortable just because it will please his wife. The narrator and his wife were in the kitchen talking, and then the wife says “If you love me, you can do this for me. If you don’t love me, okay. But if you have a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable” (116). To show that her husband is still prejudice towards blind people, he replies and says “I don’t have any blind friends” (116) which gets his wife upset because Robert is her friend. When the narrator says that he does not have any
The use of symbolism such as the physical and emotional meanings of blindness can describe different meanings behind elements of the story. In the critical essay, the author discusses why an author might choose to make a character bling and what it means. Diane Andrews Henningfeld, the author of the critical essay explains, “clearly the author wants to emphasize other levels of sight and blindness beyond physical.” Blindness can be more than just the levels of physical sight and the author wants that to be understood. The author wants to emphasize and make it very clear that other levels of sight and blindness exist like not seeing the beauty in life and being blind to it beyond just being able to see with your eyes. The quote can feel something about the characters traits and how they can be so opposite from their physical abilities. This quote Conveys the facts. People can see in different ways. It is stated that,“although he is blind, he ‘sees’ how to get along with others in profound and important ways. By contrast, the narrator, although sighted, does not see how his isolation damages himself, his wife, and their relationship. He is
He is always focused on his wife, and even though it is not his ideal of a perfect marriage he does seem to love and admire his wife as if it was. He is capable of telling us a lot of details about his wife without ever calling her out or even trying to persuade us to dislike her. His love for her makes it possible for the narrator to get past his dislike of Robert, and allow him to stay in his house. Even after all the dislike he shares with us in the very beginning of the story. He comes into the kitchen to talk to his wife, and tries his best to be a nice guy about the topic of the blind guest which is a much different view from earlier. This persuades us to look at the narrator in his wife's perspective, even though we have knowledge that she doesn't about the narrators anxiety over Robert. Another large detail we have over the wife is that the narrator is jealous of Robert and is just using his blindness as a scapegoat. However, even though this extreme case of jealousy is unhealthy for their relationship, the narrator, in his own way, tells his wife he loves her. When his wife tells him "If you love me... you can do this for me. If you don't love me, okay." he does exactly that and tries to make Robert comfortable (Carver 107).
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.
The blind man and the narrator differ on their views of the world. The blind man takes advantage of life by making friends and learning new things. The narrator sees the world superficially. He does not find deeper meanings in life and values appearances over lessons. Towards the end that changes. Once the narrator views a picture from the blind visitor’s perspective, he sees the world in a new way. “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside
Robert showed a sense of friendliness and kindness from his words, but the narrator is acting uncomfortably, as Robert acted and looked very different from what he expected from a blind person. However, the tension was eased by Robert’s continuous surprise to the narrator in a positive way. He did many things that broke many of the prejudices of the narrator, including wearing no dark glasses, smoking, and eating neatly with little help with his finger. The focal point has turned to the narrator himself, who observed everything and changed his mind on blind people gradually. Yet the ice was not broken between him and Robert.
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.
The beginning of the story presents the narrator’s wife working for a blind man one summer by reading, “stuff to him, case studies, reports, that sort of thing” (Carver, 34). She eventually extends an invitation for the blind man, Robert, to stay at their house after Robert’s wife had passed away. The narrator was not too happy about having a stranger stay in his home by stating, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed” (Carver, 34). The narrator seems very timid about someone he had never met stay at his house who can see purely nothing. This gives off an impression that the narrator doesn’t want to have Robert stay with him because he will be a hassle to keep up with since blind people in the “movies” progress, “slowly and never
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 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.
These views change possibly because a disabled person, whether a friend or family member, may be acquainted with them. Treating another equally removes these preconcieved beliefs. In the story, the audience enters the narrator's mind and sees the narrator's bias; furthermore, the narrator explains that he has "never met, or personally known, anyone who was blind" (5). The mind is powerful enough to convince people that they are seeing reality; however, empathizing with the disabled, whether through drawing a picture or conversing, reveals the flaws in people's
The narrator is pre-judgemental towards all people who are blind, whether or not he has met them. He believes all blind people are the same as those he has watched in movies. The narrator perception of the blind is that they “moved slowly and never laughed” and when they went out “they were led by seeing eye-dogs” (Carver 104). The movie industry creates a false image of the blind, which leads to the narrator’s assumptions. However, the blind are not all the same, just like how everyone else in the world are not the same. People are designed to be different in their personalities, thoughts, looks and much more. The narrator’s ideas of Robert are based off of false conceptions and this changes his attitude towards Robert. The narrator already has strong feelings towards Robert before meeting him