Hosting a stranger in your home is very challenging mostly when you feels like nobody but you deserve you wife attention. That is the struggle that the protagonist in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” have to go through. In this story, the first person narrator lacks a complete knowledge of the blind people and often give incomplete information and perception about them. The narrator is experiencing an internal conflict because of ignorance, jealousies and anger. A slight moment of epiphanies will be a turning point in the narrator life. The struggle present itself through the protagonist own internal ranting his ignorance and lack of insight and self-awareness. …show more content…
Being social awkward and not knowing how to entertain the new guest who he happened not to like for being blind. He ironically said to take the blind guy bowling, which make his wife angry and she replied by asking her husband to treat her friend nicely and make him feel comfortable. Robert is charismatic and caring and have always been a good friend to the narrator wife something that the protagonist has not been able to do and make no effort to understand his wife. Every comment he make to his wife as well as everything he does seem to annoy her. Which laid the narrator to be consumed by jealousies and bitterness .Robert visit clearly bother the narrator on several levels: by searching for his name in tape conversation between Robert and his wife reveal the level of insecurity about others opinion and his doubt. As Carver relates on page 300 of Cathedral, “on the last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose even her neck!” This has a huge impact on the narrator. He view the touch as sexual and not platonic action. In his eye Robert is another rival just like his wife ex-husband who he never mention his name.” Why should he have a name? He was a childhood sweet heart, and what more does he want?”(Carver’s, 2013, …show more content…
That created more anger toward himself and feel less than a man. This is frustrating for a superman how is trying to show how great he is. A man without a disability. So his struggle to let his guest know that a normal person according to the narrator has his limit too. Robert talk the narrator to draw a cathedral. This is not something that the narrator would had expected from a blind man.He follow Robert direction but feels like what they are doing is crazy.” So I began, first I drew a box that look like a house. It could have been the house I lived in then I put a roof on it.At either end of the roof, I drew spires. Crazy” (Carver’s p.310). Robert continue to praise his work even though he cannot see what the narrator is drawing but can feel the deep impression Bub make on the paper. In reality the picture is not what is important, for the narrator to give up control and trust a stranger. He start sympathizing with the blind man and this shows the culmination of his struggles.” Sure you got it, Bub. I can tell .You didn’t think you could. But you can, can’t you? (Carver’s p.311). He’s anger and insecurity have disappeared. Robert encourage Bub to close his eye and keep drawing. The narrator did as he was told and note; “my eyes were still close. I was in my house. I knew that .But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything.” And added “it really something”. (Carver’s
Carver provides an easy, visual outlook of the protagonist throughout the short story, which helps keep a better understanding during the simple yet intense experience. As the story continues, the protagonist enhances his mood as he aids Robert to visualizing a cathedral. This experience creates an impact on others because it is a great reason to why one should never judge someone of something beyond their controls. Also, helping someone, as Robert does for Bub can be a life changing experience. Despite the blind man being physically blind, the husband is the one with the disability to see from someone else’s perspective. This is proven through his epiphany during his portrayal of being blind. Although Bub is not physically blind, he interprets a shortage of observations. This shows that in many ways he is blinder than Robert. Robert is more open minded and willing to experience things, in contrast to Bub, who is narrow minded and has problems opening up his mind throughout the short story. Because the protagonist does not fully try to understand his wife, it makes him look like the blind person ironically though he can visually recognize her, proving that he does not truly know her inside and out. Knowing her personally is more of reality and the husband is blind to reality. Carver definitely analyzes the protagonist’s emotions through diction and visual aid throughout the story, providing great understanding of the meaning as a
The close outside friendship between the narrator’s wife and Robert, the blind man, provokes the narrator’s insecurities. This friendship has lasted for ten long years. During those years, they have exchanged countless voice tapes wherein they both tell each other what has happened in their respective lives. Because of this, the narrator feels that his wife has told Robert more than Robert needs to know. The narrator laments, "she told him everything or so it seemed to me" (1054). The narrator’s fear is somehow confirmed when Robert arrives and says that he feels like they have already met (1055). The narrator is left wondering what his wife has disclosed. This murky situation leaves the narrator feeling insecure, especially when he sees the warm interaction between his wife and Robert.
In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator, Bub, is as metaphorically blind as his guest, Robert, is literally blind. Bub has many unwarranted misconceptions about life, blind people in particular. He also has many insecurities that prevent him from getting too close to people. Through his interaction with Robert, Bub is able to open his mind and let go of his self-doubt for a moment and see the world in a different light.
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 in Raymond Carver’s "Cathedral" is not a particularly sensitive man. I might describe him as self-centered, superficial, and egotistical. And while his actions certainly speak to these points, it is his misunderstanding of the people and the relationships presented to him in this story which show most clearly his tragic flaw: while Robert is physically blind, it is the narrator who cannot clearly see the world around him.
“Cathedral,” a short story written by Raymond Carver, presents an intriguing story of an ignorant man 's lesson. During this story, Carver 's working class characters are crushed by broken marriages, financial issues, and fulfilling jobs, but they are frequently unable to understand or communicate their own sufferings. However, the main story consists of the narrator, known as “Bub,” facing an internal conflict about a blind man named Robert staying the night in his home. Regardless of the fact that this blind man is his wife 's long time friend, the narrator cannot find himself comfortable with such an idea because of his extreme prejudices. Although, despite the narrator’s conflict he finds himself connecting to Robert on a more personal
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.
Blindness in Raymond Carver's Cathedral Blindness creates a world of obscurity only to be overcome with guidance from someone willing to become intimate with the blind. Equally true, the perceptions of blindness can only be overcome when the blind allow intimacy with the sighted. Raymond Carver, with his short story Cathedral, illustrates this point through the eyes of a man who will be spending an evening with a blind man, Robert, for the first time. Not only does this man not know Robert, but his being blind, "bothered" (Carver 98) him.
The point of view from the narrators perspective, highlights how self-absorbed and narrow-minded he is. “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. It was beyond my understanding” (Carver...
The narrator in Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" has two fully functional eyes, in which he chooses never to use to their full potential. The eyes of the narrator are biased, insecure, jealous, and very limited in what they choose to see. This inability to see is made apparent when he is forced to meet and converse with a blind man. The narrator's perception of the world around him, and blurred vision, is resolved by a great irony in the story when Roger helps the narrator see past his prejudice outlook on life. The blind man teaches the narrator how to see.
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 short story of the “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver shows the narrator as the main character of the story whose name is never mentioned. The narrator’s wife’s name is never mentioned as well, and her friend who is a blind man is coming to visit after losing his wife whose name is Robert. In the beginning of the story, the narrator shows that he is an excessive drinker and feels emotionally disconnected from his wife and his wife is excited about her friends visit, Robert. This kind of emotion makes him uneasy but doesn’t know why and because he knows that Robert is blind, he feels like he is better than him. Imagine having to meet a long time old friend of your spouse of the opposite sex who they a special friendship with and whom you haven’t
Not only does the husband not know how to communicate with Robert, he does not how to act around him either. A good example of this, shown after dinner, is when all three of them go into the living room. This is how the husband portrays what happens when they first enter the room: "Robert and my wife sat on the sofa.
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.
With this in mind, the audience can infer a truer version of the narrator is displayed in the ending of the story. The narrator is found to be more receptive to Robert, even when describing cathedrals’ general appearance and construction. He also shocking accepts to draw a cathedral with Robert after failing to be able to describe one properly. When finished, Robert is still unable to fully comprehend a cathedral’s general appearance based on the drawing nor from the narrator’s description of one, which complies directly to some beginning work on an actual cathedral not being able to see the finish work. This differing of viewpoints causes the narrator to be appear