...The short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver describes an encounter between the narrator of the story and a blind man named Robert. Robert is visiting because he is friends with the narrator’s wife. At first, the narrator has many ignorant expectations of Robert, but later learns that Robert is nothing as he had expected; the narrator is ignorantly antipathic towards Robert yet is oblivious to his own constraints of sight. In this story about communication and understanding between people, Raymond Carver suggests that seeing beyond the surface involves more than simply looking, and that communicating and looking inward can provide knowledge and a superior understanding of oneself. Throughout the beginning of this story, the narrator believes that the ability of sight is everything. He is uncomfortable with a blind man staying at his house describing it as “not something I looked forward to” (Carver 240). When the wife mentions that Robert’s deceased wife was named Beulah, the narrator asks if she was a negro; this offends the wife so she asks “are you crazy? Have you just flipped or something?” (242). The colour of Beulah’s skin...
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...Raymond Carver’s story, "Cathedral’, talks about an outside relationship within a marriage that is established between the narrator’s wife and a blind man. The story elaborates how the relationship can affect the normal relations of the couple. Communication in that marriage is not as effective as expected. Also, the privacy of the husband is affected. However, openness results to seeing a cathedral when the husband explains what it is to the blind man. The title is based on the cathedral but the story is about two men who have a problem seeing. In Franz Kafka’s story, "A Hunger Artist," a man, who the writer calls “Hunger Artist”, sets on a journey with his impresario from one town to the other and finds a public place to show his fasting skills. The man is locked up in a cage and he fasts for a period of forty days. During his fasting period, people are not attracted to his intensions but suspect that he is sneaking food. He is frustrated when the town people assign butchers to ensure that he feeds on nothing. The allow him to eat. Eventually, the manager sees that the man will die and feeds him forcefully. Later, the man dies. The cage was replaced with a panther that eats hungrily and attracts many people to it. The hunger artist is a symbol of how the world is. The artist represents the part of the world that needs attention from everyone. This joy-deprived man has set himself to live a life different from other people so that he can have a theme that will ignite...
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...The Plot and Theme in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” Raymond Carver states that by the mid-1960s he was tired of reading and writing “long narrative fiction” (“On Writing” 46). Shorter fiction, he found, was more immediate. This mode of thought may help us to understand why Carver turned to compose shorter works of fiction like “Cathedral,” a work that acts as a brief glance into how one man’s physical blindness helps another man begin to overcome his own spiritual blindness. Carver’s thematic plots could convey alternate meaning—both directly and indirectly. “Cathedral” introduces the theme of blindness, shown by “this blind man” (Carver 709), but concludes by addressing the deeper theme of internal or spiritual blindness by the host. Therefore, the plot and theme of “Cathedral” relay simultaneous levels of meaning to the reader. “Cathedral” tells a story of an irreligious man, who learns a spiritual lesson from a blind man: “But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do” (Carver 718). That’s why at the end of the story he does not open his eyes for he wants to “keep them that way for a little longer” so that he can see clearly in his mind. There are two types of blindness, but when we talk about blindness, we usually think of the blindness on our physical body rather than the blindness in our mind. In “Cathedral” both Robert and the host are blind: one is blind in external sight, and the other one is...
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...Raymond Carver's short story, "Cathedral" is narrated by a man who is somewhat apprehensive about a visit from his wife's blind friend, Robert. It is told in the first person which helps set his prejudice and plain ignorant point of view towards Robert's disability. The protagonist is a flawed man, but certainly reliable in his storytelling because the reader experiences his unfiltered thoughts and see where his bias stems from in addition to watching how they influence his actions. As a result, his point of view highlights his positive spiritual metamorphosis over the evening spent with Robert. One would consider the narrator being blind in his own way. At the start, he is portrayed as a man who lacks a sense of empathy towards people. He...
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...Blindness may reveal itself in many ways. It can arise from more than just physical loss of sight. When people are blind about feelings of others is the most damaging condition. The “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is about two men, one of them is physically blind and the other is psychologically. The narrator is ignorant and detached from people around him. Although the narrator has a narrow-minded point of view and suffers from metaphorical social and emotional blindness, he ends up with transformed opinion after a discovery of the literally blind man's immense and unique wealth of wisdom. At first, the narrator appears as socially isolated. He does not have the ability to convey his feelings. Through the story, he always refuses to demonstrate his opinion: “I didn’t answer”, “But I didn’t say anything”, and “I had absolutely nothing to say to that”. His inner dialog reveals that he is not able to share his feelings, as well as truly understand feeling of others....
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...Even people who have sight have trouble seeing. In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver the narrator is forced by his wife to have a blind man stay with them, and in this time the narrator learns how to “see” from the blind man.The narrator sees with his eyes describing the cathedrals with the general comment that “They reach way up. They’re very tall,” instead of seeing with his heart. Once Robert, the blind guest, teaches him to really see, the narrator knows that “it was like nothing in my life up to now.” In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” the narrator is very much an outsider looking in on his wife’s and Robert’s friendship. He recalls all of what his wife said about what she and the blind man did together. He remembers a conversation about the day she quit working for the blind man who “ asked if he could touch her face.” (pg.527) The...
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...In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the author introduces the readers to a common flaw in society. As people, many see disabilities as a weakness. Carver adopts this attitude in the story in the form of the husband’s prejudiced nature. The way he first greets his wife’s friend is out of obligation and is strained considerably. He sees the blind man named Robert as a relic of his wife’s past who can be treated with contempt. It is not until the near end of the short story does he actually attempt to understand this visitor through conversation. At the mention of a cathedral the two unknowingly rely on each other to show the true meaning of the grand church. The husband is forced to illustrate the depth of such a place to one who has never seen the grandeur of the cathedrals. The blind visitor in exchange transforms the man with understanding and enlightenment of himself and others. The interaction...
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...After Robert coming and having dinner, drinks, and smoke, the narrator and him has a short conversation. Robert has begun to affect the narrator. Since he asks the narrator about religions, and the narrator finds difficult to describe the cathedral. He admits that he cannot tell Robert what a cathedral looks like. He represents his physical looking to a subject, cathedral which does not “mean anything special” to him; to him, the cathedrals “are something to look at on late-night TV” (Carver, 45). Then Robert suggests the narrator to close his eyes and draw. When Robert tells the narrator to open his eyes and look at what has drawn, but instead the narrator keeps his eyes closed and shows that even though he knows that was in his own home,...
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...“Cathedral”, a short story by Raymond Carver, was written in 1981. It tells a tale about a man’s first encounter with a blind individual. The old blind man, Robert, is a close friend of the narrator’s wife, so when the Robert comes over to spend the night, the narrator reluctantly acts inviting. In the beginning, the narrator is very reserved, but by the end of the story, the blind man and the narrator share a personal experience that causes him to become a less judgmental individual. Throughout the story, the author changes the view that the reader has of the narrator through the development of his character, exposing his biases, and creating an epiphany at the end of the story. Before this epiphany occurs, the narrator’s morals and characteristics are presented at the beginning of the...
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...“Cathedral” is a short story that revolves around the interactions of a blind man, named Robert and a husband of the blind man’s friend. The story opens with the narrator’s wife telling him that her blind friend is going to be visiting. She knew this blind man because she had worked for him “one summer in Seattle ten years ago” (Carver 299). As readers, we get the impression, that the husband feels superior to the blind man because he is able to see, because he continues to say this visit “was not something he looked forward to” (Carver 229). After, the wife stopped working for the blind man she kept in touch with him through audiotape. One day, the narrator’s wife let her husband listen to one tape, but when he heard his own name on the...
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...Understand Me When you think of blind people, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For the narrator in “Cathedral”, he thinks of the stereotypical blind people that one would see in movies or TV programs. “Cathedral” tells a story depicting stereotypes and ignorance through the eyes of the narrator when faced with an uncomfortable situation with a blind man. He is not depicted as a stereotypical blind man, but as a normal human. He shows the narrator along with the readers that being blind doesn’t hold him back from living life at the fullest. In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral”, he uses a blind man and the narrator not only to illustrate how stereotypes, specifically towards the blind, can prevent one from seeing and comprehending...
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...The narrator in the story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a stubborn man. The narrator constantly takes shots at Robert’s blindness while he has his own issues seeing. The narrator is not necessarily blind but does not see the limits he has put on himself. The narrator does not have the sight in the wonder of things, potential, and humanity in general. The narrator is a mean yet glib individual that has a sense of dark humor to him. He is really talkative though and clever. The glibness disappears at the conclusion of the story though when he is able to recognize how he has been. He is also detached from himself and feels as if he is in control. Constant drug use and alcohol is an easy way to understand this. Also throughout the story he does not ever mention jealousy he has of Robert and the former relationship that he had with his wife. “I heard my own name in the mouth of this Stanger,...
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...In the story “Cathedral” there are two characters that readers can compare and contrast from the beginning to the end. The first character is the narrator and also the woman’s husband. The second character is an old friend of the woman’s and is also blind. This man has just lost his wife so he came to visit. The woman had taken care of the blind man when she was younger. Throughout the story, the two characters can be compared and contrasted by the affection they give, the way people view them, and their views. The two characters both compare with the affection they both have for the woman in the story. In the beginning of the story, the wife talks about the poem she wrote when she took care of the blind man. The blind man had asked if he...
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...Benjamin Steele English 113 Dr. Gorman 2/9/2016 Question 2 Symbolism is a tool writers can use to imply ideas or qualities by the use of symbols. Stories filled with symbols can turn readers into investigators; keeping an eye out for anything and everything that can have an implied meaning. Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck are masters at using symbolism to communicate to their readers. To no surprise these writers also use symbolism in the title of their stories. Three examples of this would be Raymond Carver’s story “Cathedral”, Ernest Hemingway’s story “Hills Like White Elephants”, and John Steinbeck’s story “The Chrysanthemums”. The question is; what is the symbolic meaning behind each of to these story...
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...direction of what you want to see and the image instantaneously appears. The inner, invisible, intangible characteristics require more than receptors and neurons to visualize. Thought and personal investment are required in the visualization of the intangible. In “Cathedral”, Raymond Carver suggests blindness is often an affliction of the heart and soul and not the eyes. Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” is a short story about a husband’s journey to enlightenment. A longtime friend of the wife comes to visit after the death of his wife. The wife meets the blind man, Robert, ten years prior while looking for a summer job. She becomes his assistant. The wife reads briefs, reports, and helps organize the blind man’s office. Over the years the wife and blind man keep in touch; corresponding by sending audio tapes through the mail (Carver). The visit from the blind man is not something the husband is excited about. He remains disconnected from the conversation most of the evening. When the wife falls to sleep, the husband is forced to engage with the blind man. With the persistence of the blind man, the husband engages in a conversation about cathedrals. It is through the process of describing the cathedrals to the blind man that the life of the...
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