Raymond Carver Irony

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).

He makes this clear in the opening paragraph of the story where he says “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. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 1). The narrator dismisses Robert in the same manner a white racist may dismiss an African-American. His prejudice, or any prejudice, is preconceived based on superficial qualities rather than actual experience or reason. It is evident the narrator can’t see beyond Robert’s disability and is judging Robert because of a characteristic that makes him uncomfortable. This unconscious placement of Robert into an atypical category prevents him from seeing Robert as an individual. The narrator does not see Robert as a whole person, but solely as a blind man. Part of what makes the narrator emotionally blind is this

The husband first begins to open up to Robert when he watches with "admiration" as the blind man eats his food. He begins to see Robert as an independent man that has learned to live life despite his disability. There is a moment of connection when they all three finally begin the meal and he describes them as if they were all the same, eating the same way, intently and "seriously" (351). The husband asks to share a joint with Robert when his wife is not present, showing an indication of trust or maybe cockiness (352). Though shocked of her husband's actions, the wife joins in when she returns. When the wife has passed out between them, he commences to enjoying Robert's presence. When Robert wishes to stay up with him, listening to the television, the husband makes 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 Raymond Carver’s Cathedral, the reader is given a glimpse into the precarious relationship between the narrator and his wife. The narrator shares his heavily critical point of view on the forthcoming visit from his wife’s old friend whom he calls “the blind man” later known as “Robert”. Specifically, Carver uses first person narrative to put the reader in the mindset of the speaker who although keeps information hidden about himself, eventually exposes a substantial amount of character through his commentary. Slowly but surely he divulges his tremendously insecure, stubborn, and immature nature when it comes to matters of exhibiting empathy for others and most importantly obtaining the emotional depth for it.

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 protagonist, the narrator is closed minded and lacks communication with his wife, which clearly exhibits the distance and troubles in their relationship. The narrator is not happy with having the blind man, Robert, who he sees as a stranger over in his home which stirs up more trouble with his wife. ‘“You don’t have any friends, she said. Period, she said, “goddamn it, his wife’s just died! Don’t you understand that? The man’s lost his wife”’ (Carver 107). The wife is obviously mad with her husband who doesn’t understand the close relationship she has with Robert, which is a mutual understanding. Throughout their limited conversation the narrator asks about Roberts wife who has just

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

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

The short story is written in a colloquial tone and reads similarly to an unfocused train of thought, conveying simplicity and realism within the piece. The narrator frequently drifts from a complete statement to an aside throughout the narrative; for example, while discussing the poem his wife composed about her friend Robert he offhandedly recalls, “...I didn’t think much of the poem. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. Maybe I just don’t understand poetry,” (Carver 356). This passage, and others similar to it, cause the flow of the plot to meander, rather than adhere to a strict linear format. Additionally, while the abrupt and nonchalant remarks hold little substance to the narrator, they give the reader a window to the substantial disconnect between the narrator and his peers.

Throughout the story, the man is almost dazed, trying to savor the past and acting without a care. In the opening scene of the story, the man is drinking excessively and staring out of the kitchen window onto his lawn; his furniture is arrange in the yard as it was in the house. He even repositions the “nightstand and reading lamp on his side of the bed, nightstand and reading lamp on her side. His side, her side” (Carver 3). His actions and his thought process make it apparent that thoughts about the woman are having an impact on his mental state. He is being haunted by these memories of them.

Raymond Carver the author of “Cathedral” the narrator in this story has some prejudices, against blind people as well as so discomfort and jealousy towards Robert who is his wife long friend and confidence. In spite of how the narrator feel about Robert he does exactly what his wife asked him to do, helps to make Robert feel comfortable. This is where the reader can see the narrator had integrity. He puts his own person feeling behind him and does everything he can for Robert. For example, making sure Robert understands what's on television. We see leadership and integrity in Robert as well, Robert isn’t just a blind man, he is a man that has seen the world and a person who works with what he was giving and makes the best of his life that he

Through the author's use of diction, more aspects of the narrator's personality are revealed. Simply from word choice, we learn that the narrator is prejudicial towards others, and jealous of other men's relationships with his wife. When facing the situation of Robert coming to town to visit his wife, the narrator blatantly expresses that "a blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to" (Carver 209). This repeated substitution of "blind man"

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

As the story continues it exposes the many things that the husband fails to realize. For example, the husband neglects to recognize that Robert can feel. Robert commented about the train ride from the city that he’d "nearly forgotten the sensation" (1055). The husband does not understand that what blind people cannot see they can experience by feeling and hearing. The husband does not see what is underneath the skin or what is behind a face. The husband sees people and things at face value; he doesn’t look beneath the surface. In contrast, the blind man "sees" things with his ears, his hands, and his heart. Robert does not let the fact that he is handicapped affect how he perceives people and the things around him. Carver illustrates this when the husband observes, "The blind man has another taste of his drink. He lifted his beard, sniffed it, and let it fall. He leaned forward on the sofa. He positioned his ashtray on the coffee table, then put the lighter to his cigarette. He leaned back on the sofa and crossed his legs at the ankles" (1057) He did this just as anyone could have done. He doesn’t let the fact that he is