In the short story, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, our gloomy and negative narrator has been stuck in a rut for a while, but his wife’s blind friend is about to put a spark back in our narrator. Robert, the blind man, recently lost his wife. This helped form a great friendship and sometimes intimate relationship with him and the narrator’s wife. This makes the narrator irritated, jealous, and unhappy. The narrator’s wife invites Robert over for dinner and this is where the narrator undergoes his change. In “Cathedral”, the trapped, disapproving, and depressed narrator changes into an inspired and hopeful fellow when Robert teaches him how to see.
The narrator is extremely judgmental towards the blind and this creates negative preconceived notions about Robert. First, his idea of a blind man comes from movies he has watched and describes that the blind, “moved slowly and never laughed” (Par. 1). The narrator has a horrible attitude towards the blind and because of this he sees himself higher than any blind person. Second, he believes that when Robert’s wife was alive they both had no capability of loving each other solely because of Robert’s blindness. He thinks Robert cannot love because he had never “seen what the goddamned woman looked like” (Par. 16). The narrator then thinks Robert’s wife could not love him because she could “never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one” (Par. 16). This kind of harsh thinking that the narrator has towards Robert is detrimental to himself as well as those surrounding him. The narrator is trapped with judgmental thinking, making him hard to be around and cooperate with.
The narrator feels trapped with the current life he lives and this makes him depressed. When Robert is over...
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...e not left with much of an ending, but we can only hope as readers that this will progress the narrator forward in his life.
In “Cathedral”, we see a trapped narrator undergo a small venture that has the possibility to make his life turn for the absolute better. Something as slight as a blind man coming over for dinner one night has the power to change the narrator’s entire perspective. This story is captivating and meaningful because it reminds us of the tiny experiences in our own lives that were monumental and moved us greatly despite how minuscule it may seem to the outside world. As we look back at our lives, we slowly come to the realization that our small experiences are in fact actually the biggest.
Works Cited
Carver, Raymond. “Cathedral.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed.
Kelly J. Mays. Portable 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2014. 34-46. Print.
In the story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, the main character, goes through a major personal transformation. At the beginning of the story, his opinions of others are filled with stereotypes, discrimination and prejudice. Through interaction with his wife's blind friend Robert, his attitude and outlook on life changes. Although at first he seemed afraid to associate with a blind man, Robert's outgoing personality left him with virtually no choice. During Robert's visit, he proved to be a normal man, and showed the speaker that by closing his eyes, he could open his mind.
The narrator’s prejudice makes him emotionally blind. His inability to see past Robert’s disability stops him from seeing the reality of any relationship or person in the story. And while he admits some things are simply beyond his understanding, he is unaware he is so completely blind to the reality of the world.
By becoming close with Robert, the man in this story experienced what was necessary to gain an understanding of what life is like for the blind. The man began to draw the cathedral to try and help Robert visualize what one looked like. What he didn't realize at the time was that Robert was helping him to visualize what blindness felt like. Bibliography: Carver, Raymond. "Cathedral".
The irony between Robert and the narrator is that even though Robert is blind, he pays attention to detail without the need of physical vision. Roberts’s relationship with the narrator’s wife is much deeper than what the narrator can understand. Robert takes the time to truly listen to her. “Over the years, she put all kinds of stuff on tapes and sent the tapes off lickety-split. [...] She told him everything, or so it seemed to me” (Carver 124). This demonstrates that the narrator is in fact somewhat jealous of how his wife confides in Robert, but still overlooks the fact that he doesn’t make the slightest effort to pay attention to her. Also the narrator is not precisely blind, but shows a lack of perception and sensitivity that, in many ways, makes him blinder than Robert. Therefore, he has difficulty understanding people’s views and feelings that lie beneath the surface.
The narrator, his wife, and the blind man spend the evening talking, but eventually the wife falls asleep. The narrator is uncomfortable about being left alone with a blind man. There is something about cathedrals on TV and the blind man asks the narrator to describe what a cathedral looks like. The narrator only describes physical things and so the blind man decides that they should try drawing one instead. As they draw the blind man and the narrator connect and a transformation in the narrator?s character takes place.
The husband in Raymond Carvers “Cathedral” wasn’t enthusiastic about his wife’s old friend, whom was a blind man coming over to spend the night with them. His wife had kept in touch with the blind man since she worked for him in Seattle years ago. He didn’t know the blind man; he only heard tapes and stories about him. The man being blind bothered him, “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 137)” The husband doesn’t suspect his ideas of blind people to be anything else. The husband is already judging what the blind man will be like without even getting to actually know him. It seems he has judged too soon as his ideas of the blind man change and he gets a better understanding of not only the blind man, but his self as well.
The narrator is jealous of their 10-year-old connection and isn’t hesitant to share it with reader, it becomes clear that one of key differences among these relationship is simply appreciation. The wife plays such an important role in the life of the blind man and feels acknowledged and regarded by him. On the other side, the narrator appears to have a lack of appropriate recognition for his spouse. When the storyteller shares his thoughts about the poem written by his wife, he states, “I didn’t think much of the poem” (Carver 34). Ultimately, while he shows no support to his significant other, the blind man fills in that emotional void with much needed gratefulness. I agree with KEEPING THE READER when he writes, “His [narrator] problem is that he does not ‘see’ his wife in the sense that he does not seek to understand who she is. The apparent difference between the men is that Robert, despite his physical lack of vision, is open to new experiences. (Clark 108). Clearly, the storyteller keeps himself emotionally disconnected from his wife and speaks of her past experiences, “He talks about her suicide attempt and previous marriage in a coldly analytical way, as if he can barely believe that it truly happened” (Clark 109). In addition, the narrator’s tone seems tense while describing the physical occurrence between his wife and Robert, “she told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose – even her neck! She never forgot it. She even tried to write a poem about it” (Carver 34). This kind of memory wouldn’t set well with no man, especially the storyteller. I see eye to eye with Mark Facknitz when he writes, “Robert sexually threatens the narrator, with his blindness, and by virtue of being a representative of a past that is meaningful to the wife” (Facknitz 293). The narrator can’t embrace the fact that the past can
“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story narrorated by a man whose wife invites an old friend (Robert) over for a visit after recently losing his wife of eight years. This old friend is blind, which greatly troubles the nameless man. This is because he already has a preconceived idea of what blind people are like without ever having met one. As the story progresses and soon ends, this unnamed man learns of his misconceptions and the true meaning of life after spending time with his blind house guest. This is accomplished as Carver uses irony to accentuate the difference between physically looking versus internally seeing. Symbolism is also used as literary device to point out that empathy and viewpoint is the only way to truly understand profound emotion.
Raymond Carver’s, “The Cathedral” is a short story told by the narrator, whose actual identity remains unknown. The narrator tells of an evening where his wife invites an old friend and former patient, by the name of Robert, over to spend the night. The only thing that differentiates Robert from the rest of the group is the simple fact that he is blind. The narrative is seemingly flat and uneventful upon initial observation. Although this may be true, it is blatantly apparent that the narrator or bud, a nicknamed coined by Robert, is close-minded and quick to make preconceived notions and assumptions about circumstances that he is unfamiliar with, especially Robert’s inability to see. Upon deeper analysis it is discovered that Bud, the narrator,
The narrator's insensitivity reveals itself early in the story when his wife's blind friend, Robert, comes for a visit after the death of his wife. Almost immediately in the beginning of the story the narrator admits "A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to." [Carver 2368] He even goes so far as to suggest to his wife that he take the man bowling. He hears the story of Robert's dead wife and can not even imagine " what a pitiful life this woman must have led." [Carver 2370] The narrator is superficial, only recognizing the external part of people and not recognizing the value of a person on the inside.
In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the husband's view of blind men is changed when he encounters his wife's long time friend, Robert. His narrow minded views and prejudice thoughts of one stereotype are altered by a single experience he has with Robert. The husband is changed when he thinks he personally sees the blind man's world. Somehow, the blind man breaks through all of the husband's jealousy, incompetence for discernment, and prejudgments in a single moment of understanding.
In the first paragraph, the narrator also reveals his ignorance. He believes that all blind people are based on only what he has seen in movies, "My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they are led by seeing-eye dogs “(104). The narrator was surprised when he noticed Robert was not like this. The narrator is also surprised when Robert lights a cigarette. He believes blind people don’t smoke because “they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled” (108). The husband starts to feel more comfortable after this. The three of them sit down for dinner and the husbands is impressed with the how Robert is able to locate his food, cut with a knife, and eat properly. This is where the narrator’s outlook starts to undergo change.
Why Robert does not use the cane and wear sunglasses? This idea bothers the narrator. He think that the blind should appear with that for purpose although he does not has any clues to acclaim that should be. He thinks Robert is abnormal toward his appearance and action. The prejudice on Robert and the lacking knowledge of the disability accidentally confuse him. Robert acts like a normal people. He appears as a visibility of disability. Physically his eyes tell that he is blind but his action is not. His disability seems to be forgotten in him. His bright mind opens the valuable affection on his interests
The husband's view on the world at the start of the story was a narrow one that was based on his ignorance, which prevented him from gaining understanding. His long held misconceptions, especially about blindness, defined his expectations about things he did not understand. For instance, when the husband found out that Robert was coming to stay, he disliked the idea of someone who was blind, let alone someone who he didn't know, coming to visit and the husband's "idea of blindness came from the movies." He saw the blind people as people who "moved slowly and never laughed." This was not the limit of his ignorance as it was further displayed by his constant referral of Robert as "the blind man" and his assumption of Robert's deceased wife being a black person based solely on the name of Beulah. This assumption display his bigotry is not limited to Robert's blindness and that differences that he did not understan...
Carver uses characterization to display the contrasting state of mind between the main characters, the narrator and Robert. “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 88). With the narrators dialogue and thoughts, we begin to see his envious, overcritical and ignorant persona arise. It seems that the narrator is oblivious to the close minded concepts he has about both relationships and life. “They’d married, lived and worked together, slept together - had sex, sure - and then the blind man had to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman looked like”(Carver 90). The narrator’s description of Robert’s marriage exhibits his superficial idea of what a true relationship is. Although the narrator believes he has an intuitive understanding of life and...