The Cathedral By Raymond Carver

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

While the narrator’s wife was waiting for Robert in the train station, the narrator was thinking about the miserable life of a blind person. The narrator was thinking about Robert and the relationship he had with her wife. He was thinking how Robert’s wife couldn’t feel what it was to be admired. For example, the narrator states, “Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one” (276). Indeed, although the narrator felt bad about the condition of the blind man, he felt worst about how was the life of a person who lived close to a blind man.

In the short story, “Cathedral” we are introduced to an unnamed male narrator, who acts as the protagonist of the story. The story unfolds through the narrator 's point of view as we are introduced to his wife and her blind friend, Robert. It is clear the moment the narrator is aware of Robert’s visit he becomes tense and uncomfortable, “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” (“Cathedral” 33). The narrator is unwelcoming and readers are quick to sense his dissatisfaction and

Raymond Carver’s short-story Cathedral is outwardly about a pessimistic man, whose wife’s blind visitor named Robert changes the narrators predisposing perception of the world and awakes a new view on life in the process. But inwardly, the story is about the desperate need for connection between these three characters, which isn’t feasible do to the emotional-detachment by the narrator. In the beginning, the narrator is hindered by his prejudices which doesn 't allow him connect to anything greater than himself. But with the help of the blind man who is able to see the greater truth, since he’s incapable of having his perception distorted based on outer appearance; allows him to teach the narrator the difference between looking and seeing. Carver is proclaiming that when we open ourselves to new ways of connecting with others, and new ways of viewing at the world, we can have hugely rewarding experiences.

In the short story Cathedral, a blind man named Robert is coming to stay the night at the narrator’s house. Ten years in the past, the narrator’s wife used to work for Robert. Therefore, the narrator’s wife and Robert have a good relationship and are very friendly toward each other. The wife doesn’t

He mentioned that he and his wife hardly ever went to bed at the same time (par.85) it shows that he and his wife are not happy with each other. He evens infers that he is jealous of the wife first husband when he said “this man who’d first enjoyed her favors” (par. 4). As the story is coming to an end the narrator is beginning to get along with the blind man. As the narrator begins to explain to Robert what is happening on the TV and Robert asks him to describe the cathedral. When he cannot describe the cathedral he realizes that even if he can see he can’t really explain

In “Cathedral,” the husband judges his wife’s blind friend, who is going to visit them, before he even meets him. He assumes that all blind people are the same, believing that the blind man is going to be like the blind people he’s seen in movies or has heard about. Throughout the blind man’s visit, the husband doesn’t know how to act and is very silent, just listening to the conversations, because he thinks that he already knows what the blind man is like. In the end of the story, the husband realizes that the blind man is not how he assumed he would be like. The husband realized that he is just like everyone else and that his blindness doesn’t stop him from knowing things or from being able to see things that his eyes can’t. There is a turning point where he really begins to understand what the man is like. Raymond Carver allows us to make the connection and realize that at times we are just like the husband, we judge people without meaning to, even when we’ve never met them. We tend to automatically make assumptions about people based on our own standards and

In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator known as the husband has an encounter with one of his wife’s lifelong friends Robert. Robert is a blind man that plays an integral roll in the climax of this story when the narrator has a life changing experience with Robert and seeing life through the eyes of a blind man. In this essay, we will delve into the various character aspects of the husband, and Robert. We will also discuss the relationship, and dynamic between these two characters as well as how they change throughout the story.

“Cathedral” written by Raymond Carver is a short story that unfolds as a first-person narrative of the main character named Bub. The story beautifully depicts the process of an individual who transforms from a person with lack of knowledge and ignorant towards knowledgeable soul, due to an encounter with his wife’s blind friend Robert, to an individual that is enlightened. The cathedral, in this story, is a mere subject brought up at the end of this story which becomes the object of his enlightenment. “Cathedral,” tells a tale of Bub who through a blind man receives an eye-opening experience. The narrator starts off as intolerable, but towards the end of the story, with the assistance of a blind man makes him open-minded. He is clobbered

In the short story “The Cathedral,” the narrator’s wife has invited over a blind man (whose wife had just died) she used to work for in the past to their house to reconnect after years of corresponding through audiotape. This visit by the blind man, named Robert, has the narrator feeling uneasy as he possesses a biased point of view towards blind people. This biased point of view takes form to the readers through first person narration (175), allowing the reader to see an in depth point of view of a specific character in this case the narrator. When the blind man arrives, the narrator doesn’t know what to say or do because he has never experienced someone of the sort. His wife urges him to have sympathy for the blind man, but he can only see

In “Cathedral,” the blind man, Robert, initiates the transformation of the narrator’s mentality. The narrator and his wife are in a surface-level relationship and are unhappy, because they do not understand one another. Robert cannot physically see the narrator’s wife, but he can mentally see her soul and emotions which is something the narrator lacks the ability to do. When the narrator and Robert begin drawing a cathedral together, the narrator has an epiphany and learns from Robert how to truly see. When the narrator keeps his eyes closed after he finishes drawing the cathedral, the reader can see the narrator’s drastic transformation. At this point in the story, the narrator can “see” the cathedral better with his eyes shut. After this

We realize that the narrator did not think much of Robert even before he has ever met him. After meeting him and trying to draw the cathedral, he was told by Robert to close his eyes and continue. At the end, we can see the growth of the narrator and his feeling towards Robert and blind men in general. When he’s told to open his eyes:

The narrator’s comment about Beulah are ironic. His comments depict how he believes a relationship works, he thinks that the physicality’s are the most important. That a husband should comment on his wife's appearance and give her compliments. This is ironic because we gather from the story that his relationship with his wife may not be all the husband thinks it is; but the blind man and his wife seem to have the greatest relationship possible and it comes from focusing on the beauty within. For example, the narrator and his wife give the impression that they do not see eye-to-eye on everything. But Robert appreciated his wife for more than her looks, allowing them to really connect. Therefore, having the ability to see is not always better

In addition to the use of stereotypes and ethical views the author used another next key element to develop his message and purpose. This element was the use of symbols that were developed and interpreted through the characters and their situations in this story. The most important of these symbols is arguably blindness. Now in a sense, I do mean the actual blindness of Robert the blind man; however, there is also the idea of being oblivious or blind not in your eyes, but in feeling. This idea is visible through the relationship of the narrator and his wife. Ironically this whole story may not be a thing if not for the blindness, or rather the inability of this narrator to see the needs and wants of his wife. The wife who the narrator explains attempted suicide in her last marriage due to, the

In the story, ‘Cathedral’ written by Raymond Carver, a wife, a husband, and a blind man, known as Robert, come together and interact with each other. The narrator was disturbed with the thought of having Robert in his home, especially since he is a stranger to the narrator. The narrator believes in the falsifications of blind people from the movies and therefore, judges the “blind man” (1) prior to his arrival. His judgment shows that he thinks of Robert on a highly shallow level, which demonstrates, similar to all his other negative characteristics, that he doesn’t experience the depth of reality. When Robert actually arrives, the narrator feels awkward and hardly speaks with him, as he doesn’t know what to have a conversation about. When he does speak up, however, he asks questions and discusses statements that one would have the decency not to discuss with the disabled. The narrators’ personality consists of ignorance and immaturity that portrays his lack of empathy as he suggests activities like going “bowling” (3). In a sense, the husband has his own emotional, social and intellectual blindness that he is unaware of. He is socially oblivious of what Robert experiences with his physical abnormality, and how the intimacy between him and his wife decreases. Nevertheless, as the protagonist lacks dimension and the depth of reality, he achieves his epiphany after a series of perceptual blows that “clobber” him to his preconceived notions, which allows him to overcome his