Comparing Cathedral And Neighbors By Raymond Carver

In Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, a blind man guides the narrator towards an epiphany: he needs to see situations and people in a deeper way, rather than just from a materialistic point of view. In the beginning of the story, the narrow-minded speaker is originally opposed to having the blind man, Robert, stay in his home. Because the narrator realizes that there is a nothingness in his life, he eventually grows to admire Robert’s ability to have faith in people, relationships, and the world even though he cannot see. When the narrator closes his eyes while the two men are drawing a cathedral, his spiritual growth in the story becomes apparent to the reader and to himself because he notices that by drawing with such passion, he has begun to

To be imaginative is to be a child. As a person ages, he is expected to mature into adulthood and to live in the real world. He is expected to abandon his childhood dreams and cultivate practicality and factuality. However, imaginations are not limited to unicorns and dragons; it is a skill a person must nurture to realize his dreams and desires. To be imaginative is to be a visionary. Without a vision, a person lacks the sight for compassion, curiosity, and self-consciousness. In this sense, imagination is not only to think outside the box, but also to search deeper inside. In the short story, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, Carver develops the idea that a lack of imagination limits a person to the physical and visible world which leads to the blindness to the abstract world and rejection of the uncertain future. It is when a person opens his eyes to the unseen that he can create emotional connection with others and discover the profound truth inside himself.

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”, the short story is told by a character within the story. The first-person point of view gives us a transparent visual of an important time in the narrators’ life. The narrator, who is “un-named” in the beginning of the story, uses blunt, flawless and a particular choice of words. This gives us as the reader a deeper connection with the narrator. The narrator begins this story by taking us through the changes he go through with the uneasy feeling of having a blind-man coming to his house to visit.

The narrator’s attitude in “Cathedral” changes completely throughout the story. He feels, at the beginning of the story, uncomfortable and annoyed with the fact that a blind man would be staying in his home. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me… A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.” The narrator is a very judgemental person and stereotypes Robert into a category he had already created inside of his head. He is not willing to welcome Robert into his home.

I enjoyed reading “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. The story is realistic, relatable, and meaningful. The main protagonist, Bub, is arrogant and superficial. Because of Robert’s intimate relationship with his wife, he does not like the blind man. To cover up the fact that he is jealous, he states that he never had a blind man in his house before and that Robert does not have the characteristics he thought blind people have. Robert does not wear glasses, has a beard and etc. On page 90 he says, “I always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind.” This shows that even before he met Bub, he already had some preconceived picture of Bub that hinders him from really getting to know the real Bub. However, towards the end of the story he seems

“Cathedral” by Carver isn’t a story that immediately grabbed my attention. By the way that the story is written to the actual story itself, it was missing something that made me want to continue reading it at first, but then I realized that there is a purpose for it being that way. I felt disconnected because that’s how the husband felt. This story had more to it than the author lead on. After looking back at the story I realized that although one of the characters is blind, it’s actually two that were blind and the second being the husband.

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.

The narrator from Raymond Carver’s ‘Cathedral’, lived a clouded state of mind where his thoughts kept him from reaching the pellucid reality. Through the beginning of the narrative, the narrator expresses his harsh and judgmental opinions about blindness- which represents his incapacity and closed-mindedness to see beyond him. Later on his perspective is changed thanks to a sudden events. The narrator, which has no given name, is bothered by the impending visit of his wife’s blind friend, Robert. The narrator’s wife used to work for Robert from which they developed a relationship and inspired the wife to write poems about it. They, the wife and Robert, have maintained a constant communication through mailed tapes. All of these added up more to the narrator’s dislike for Robert. For example, when the narrator express his desconstest towards Robert’s disability: “And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies” (‘Cathedral’, Raymond Carver). Here the narrator’s narrowness and lack of sympathy is palpable. He is simple and superficial. Lives in a 2D way, is incapable of bearing a thought outside the box, and explore the depths of life in general. He is unhappy with his current work position but does nothing to change that fact. That’s until Robert’s visit. This is changed once the narrator gets to know Robert and Robert opens the narrator’s mind to life seen through another pair of eyes. For instance, after dinner is over, the narrator and Robert are watching a documentary about cathedrals. Suddenly, the narrator wonders if Robert has any knowledge of how cathedrals look like. There is where their journey begins. Robert ask to the narrator to draw a cathedral for him and request the narrator to add specific details (people, etc.). “So we kept on it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over

A lot of the time, the bias of the world interferes with the perception of others and the way they are viewed, leaving out the realistic factor of how that person’s personality actually is. We make assumptions based on what we were taught growing up, and the experiences we’ve had in life. In the short story, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver the narrators bias led him to believe that the blind man who was visiting his wife will be nothing but an awkward person who is incapable of doing things on his own. Throughout the story the narrator, learns through multiple experiences that the blind man is not that different from him, and that he can do almost everything an un-handicapped person could do in their daily life.

Cathedral is a capitivating story based on the lives of the narrator, his wife and a blind man. Raymond Carver is the author of this story, and he does an excellent job allowing the reader to delve into the lives of these characters. Through using the thoughts of the narrator, the reader is able to grab our attention because the story is made more realistic. The views expressed by the narrator in many senses exemplify the views of many in society and therefore the reader is able to make an emotional connection through the story.

In the beginning of Raymond Carver’s, “Cathedral” the protagonist, who was also the narrator, was not sympathetic towards the blind man. The main character had many preconceived notions about blind people and did not consider life inside their shoes. When they first met, the protagonist felt disgust and lack of empathy towards Robert, the blind man, but he restrained from showing his emotions. It is also very noticeable that the main character was continually jealous of the attention and admiration that his wife gave to her friend, Robert. “I waited in vain to hear my name on my wife’s sweet lips: ‘And then my dear husband came into my life’ -- something like that” (Carver 37). It was an immature mindset that was caused by an unsympathetic and uninterested thought

In Raymond Carver’s story “Cathedral” there are many signs of prejudice, jealousy, misunderstandings and eventually what may appear to possibly be a development of friendship. There is a fair amount of preconceived judgment made by the narrator in regards to an old friend coming to visit his wife. At the beginning of the story the narrator refers to the old friend as “the blind man” (Carver 455) and makes it clear that he “wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit.” (456) Although, the narrator embarks into unknown territory while preparing for the visit and while engaging with a blind man during his stay, he finds himself seeing the world in a new light.

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.

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.

Raymond Carver’s characters were considered to be very much like him: “’on the edge: of poverty, alcoholic self-destruction, loneliness” (Mays 32). His short story “Cathedral” is about a young couple, who have a visitor coming to stay with them. This visitor, Robert, is the wife’s friend, and he is blind. The narrator, the husband, has never met someone who is blind, was bothered by that. To him, being blind meant constantly needing help from others. His depiction of blindness was what he has seen in the movies. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit… A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to,” he tells the reader (Carver 32). His wife on the other hand, was very happy to see her old friend. She had worked for Robert