Raymond Carver Narrator

Sometimes we have to look beyond what we see on the outside to understand something more deeply. In the short story Cathedral By Raymond Carver, the narrator has an attitude of being selfish, and jealous through the story. The narrator’s wife invites a blind man, Robert, to come stay in their house for a short time while the man visits family members of his own wife who recently passed. The narrator is not enthusiastic because blind people make the narrator uncomfortable, mainly because the narrator has no real experience with the blind. In addition, to his uneasiness with the blind the narrator is uncomfortable with the relationship his wife and the blind man have. The wife and Robert, the blind man, have maintained a close

Being blind manifest itself in a lot of ways. The most harmful type of this condition may be figurative blindness of one’s own situations and ignorance towards the feelings of others. Within Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral,” the narrator’s emotional and psychological blindness is at once obvious. The narrator faces many issues as well as the turn-around experienced at the culmination of the tale are the main ideas for the theme of this story; and these ideas aid the narrator in eventually develop the character transformation by simply regarding the literal blind man in a positive light.

Raymond Carver’s unnamed narrator in “Cathedral” provides a first-person point of view. This perspective opens a clear window into the feelings, attitudes, and the isolation of the unnamed narrator. The narrator’s tone of voice reveals his feelings and personality. This contributes to the story’s themes because the reader comes to understand things that the narrator never directly or deliberately reveals; as a result, the reader comes to empathize with the narrator more deeply. Isolation and loneliness are prevalent themes in “Cathedral”. Appropriately, the narrator is insular and narrow-minded. He is unhappy and resentful because he overlooks the worth and liveliness of other people and is unable to make connections with them. Consequently he is afflicted with loneliness and isolation. “He is numb and isolated”, says Mark A.R. Facknitz, “a modern man for whom integration with the human race would be so difficult that it is futile. Consequently he hides by failing to try, anesthetizes himself with booze, and explains away the world with sarcasm.” (Facknitz 294) The narrator also appears to be emotionally distant from his wife. Neither he nor his wife are able to relate successfully to one another. Because of this, he is envious of the blind man, Robert, who seems to be the only one capable of creating and sustaining deep and personal connections with other people. As the story develops, the narrator’s increasing ability to connect with Robert and his wife emphasizes the

Blindness is not limited to physical manifestation. In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the figurative blindness is immediately apparent through the narrator and his shallowness, irrational jealousy, and egotistical personality. His dismissive behavior and ignorance towards the feelings of Robert, his wife’s blind friend, speak negatively of his character and reveals his insecurities. While the narrator’s emotional blindness and Robert’s physical blindness initially inhibits their bond, it eventually leads the narrator to an epiphany and the beginning of a character transformation. The different forms of blindness allow the characters to bond and grow over the course of the story.

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.

Carver’s story “Cathedral” opens with this blind man, coming to visit the narrator’s wife friend of ten years. It takes place in the narrator's home; he is on his way to spend the night. However,

You cannot truly see the world and understand other people, until you see inside yourself. Raymond Carver’s The Cathedral is a story that shows you do not have to actually “see” in order to appreciate the world or those in it. The narrator Bub forms a relationship with Robert, by the end of the story, although it starts to form with his wife, then when he actually meets Robert, and finally their “experience” together in the end. People tend to be blind to the world, until guided by someone with another insight on the world.

What attitudes define the narrator throughout much of the story? What is his attitude toward his wife, toward Robert, toward his own experience and the experience of others? The short story “Cathedral” written by Raymond Carver is about a blind widower, his good friend and old employee, and the good friend’s husband. The narrator of the story is the husband of the widower’s friend and the thoughts and feelings from him portray a man who is fearful of the unknown.

In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver which shows a narrators insight and reflection of himself by gaining better perspective and knowledge of Robert. At first the narrator's attitude towards Robert coming to visit his wife exhibits a lot of close-mindedness. He purely judges the fact that Robert is blind and how his only idea of blindness comes from “movies” (Carver 105). The narrator initially is fearful of meeting a blind man due to his experience of never meeting one. Before meeting Robert, the narrator and his wife get in a argument. The narrator goes on to say “I don’t have any blind friends”, which causes the wife to lash back to say “You don’t have any friends” (Carver

It is this difference in demeanor, not physical ability and inability alone, that Carver uses to craft his contrast between the blind man and the narrator. The narrator shies away from potentially difficult interactions, preferring to skirt them away by alcohol and drugs. Robert indulges his host in his habits, but only so far as he can maintain his mind (page 83). Robert is instead in pursuit of a relationship the narrator thought him incapable of, a relationship invested in seeing the value, wonder, and capacity within people. Faith is how you look at the unseen, even the unforeseeable’s, embracing them with an expectation of a good outcome, contrary even to how things might seem. Incapable of judging by appearance, Robert welcomes only an experience which goes beyond shallow judgments; all was common to him, blind and seeing alike, and all was in its own way holy. In this, he assumes what he cannot see, the satisfying conclusion to his efforts, and like one building a cathedral that he will never see completed, he must have faith in the potential of others. Thus he considers the wife’s conscious presence only a hindrance to this aim (page 84), though a welcome partner in reflection for him, not a suitable medium for

In his short story “Cathedral” Raymond Carver uses a unnamed narrator to tell his story in a first person point of view. Other than his name we get to know that he has a wife who's blind friends, Robert, wife just passed away and is visiting her family in Connecticut. During Roberts stay in Connecticut he will be staying at their house. While the man was able to see perfectly from his eyes he wasn't able to see his surroundings and others feelings. On the other hand Robert was lacking eye sight but was able to understand people very well. The narrator feels bad for Robert because he has never seen his wife, but the truth is he saw and understood her in his own way. Sometimes we can see someone but cant really see what they are feeling or trying

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.

“And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed...A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.” The main character and narrator of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” harbors such predetermined assumptions about his wife’s visiting friend, Robert, who happens to be blind. Throughout the story, the narrator describes his wife’s past, which includes details about her first love, how her acquaintance with Robert came to be, and Robert’s impression on her life in the preceding years as they exchanged audiotapes to keep up with one another. Robert’s arrival and company begins to defy and change the narrator’s postulated ideas about blind individuals and even influences the narrator to act more open-minded. Nearing the end of the story, when the television portrays certain European cathedrals, Robert requests that the narrator draw a cathedral with him and has him close his eyes, which ultimately alters his understanding of himself and the world. As many elements of the story reflect Raymond Carver’s own life, the audience can gain a sense of his personality through the narrator and Robert. Through the narrator’s need for intoxication, narrative style, and his depiction of his wife and Robert, the irony that even though the narrator and his wife are not blind, they are still missing a sense of satisfaction in their lives while Robert, unable to see, understands the world and the key to happiness.

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

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