Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” uses storytelling to establish an emotional connection with the reader emphasizing a message of positive transformation through human contact. This short story blends the qualities of minimalism with the poetic emotionalism of realism to provide a narrative about attitudes and relationships. Although this story is not the classical example of minimalism, Carver uses the negative element of emptiness to portray this style. On the surface, this is a simple story told from the viewpoint of the narrator, a close-minded husband who lacks deep connection in his life, “‘I don’t have any blind friends,’ I said. ‘You don’t have any friends,’ she said” (Carver, 745). Initially the narrow-minded narrator paints a feeling …show more content…
of jealousy and resentment as he awaits his wife’s blind friend, Robert, to visit. He feels excluded from the closeness his wife and Robert share as he doesn’t see what a blind man has to offer. But as the story develops, the narrator slowly achieves an emotional breakthrough and grows in humanity and understanding. The desire and power of human contact is first evident in the beginning of the story when the narrator reflects on a time his wife allowed Robert to touch her face, “On her 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 finders 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, 744). This moment incited something in his wife that was so profound she felt a need to write about it. The narrator obviously lacks this deep connection with his wife as they seem to fill their days with a pattern of watching television, drinking, eating, and smoking pot, displaying no real sense of connection. Although the narrator seems to desire this connection as he feels an emptiness inside, “‘I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything. Sometimes it’s hard’”(Carver, 752). Once again human contact is key as seen in the culmination of the final scene, as the two men sit side by side, their hands linked, drawing a cathedral on a paper bag. This moment of human contact invokes and awakening of senses in the narrator, despite having closed eyes, his mind is now open. “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything. ‘It’s really something,’I said”(Carver,
753).
These audiotapes represent a distinguished type of communication that requires no visual interaction, but an interface that involves understanding and empathy instead, something the narrator has not yet learned. At this point of the story the narrator believes that Robert could not have possibly fulfilled his now deceased wife’s, Beulah’s, aspirations as seen when he states, “I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led,” (37). The narrator bases his reason solely on the fact that the man is blind, so how could he have ever interacted or contributed in their relationship. In reality, though, it is the narrator himself, who has not fully satisfied or even begun to fully appreciate his own wife. The audiotapes symbolize this absence of appreciation and reveals to the reader that the narrator has not even considered this “harmless chitchat,” (36) as he describes it, to be of importance to his own marriage. It is not until the end, when he finishes drawing the cathedral that he is capable of understanding what his wife and Robert share. The cathedral is the other major symbol in this story, since it is the pivotal turning point for when the narrator becomes a dynamic character. Without the cathedral the narrator would not have succumbed to his new acceptance of what it means to actually see someone or something. When the narrator says, “I didn’t feel like I was inside anything,” (46) this is the indication of that epiphany coming to him. Moments before, the narrator had just explained to Robert that he did not “believe in it [religion]. In anything,” (45) however, this insightful moment now contradicts that statement, supporting the notion that the narrator has advanced as a character. Furthermore, a cathedral, which is assumed to bring solace and a new light to those in pursuit of one, offered the
In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, a blind man named Robert help Bub, a person unable to understand or place the feelings of others in front of his own , open his eyes and realize how to consider others feelings. In the story, Robert comes to to visit Bub’s wife after his wife passes away. Bub is not looking forward to his encounter with Robert. As the story progresses, Bub is forced to interact with Robert in ways that seem foreign to him. Bub’s difference interactions with Robert builds up to the both of them drawing a cathedral together, which leads to Bub being changed and him placing Roberts points of view ahead of his own. Bub believes the world revolves around himself and lacks the ability to consider others feeling ahead of his own,
Carver tells the story in first person of a narrator married to his wife. Problems occur when she wants a friend of hers, an old blind man, to visit for a while because his wife has died. The narrator's wife used to work for the blind man in Seattle when the couple was financial insecure and needed extra money. The setting here is important, because Seattle is associated with rain, and rain symbolically represents a cleansing or change. This alludes to the drastic change in the narrator in the end of the story. The wife and blind man kept in touch over the years by sending each other tape recordings of their voices which the narrator refers it to being his wife's "chief means or recreation" (pg 581).
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.
In some stories, symbolism can play a significant role in coming to understand the overall moral of the story. One of the best examples of this is found in Raymond Carver's “Cathedral”. This story centers around the theme of the differences between physically looking at something, and truly seeing it. In the final section of the story Carver gives his readers a wonderful example of symbolism as the readers discover along with the narrator, that seeing something through understanding can be much more powerful than the physical sense of the word.
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...
Raymond Carver utilizes his character of the husband, who is also the narrator, in his short story "Cathedral." From the beginning of the story the narrator has a negative personality. He lacks compassion, has a narrow mind, is detached emotionally from others, and is jealous of his wife's friendship with a blind man named Robert. He never connects with anyone emotionally until the end of this story.
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.
What makes a brotherhood, and how does the short story "Cathedral” relates to brotherhood? In the “Cathedral”, Robert and the Narrator connect over a drawing. The drawing help changes the outcome of the Narrator thoughts of blind people. "Cathedral" helps us understand brotherhood and how you don 't have to be blood-related to join a brotherhood. In the "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, you can experience a newly form brotherhood by two completely opposite characters who are able to form an alliance. The Narrator lacks awareness of others, but with Robert’s help, the Narrator is able to finally see the world in from a different point of view, and this opens him up to create a bond with Robert. In "Cathedral", you see the unity between two men,
At the beginning, the narrator is metaphorically blind in the way that he observes the world and others, whereas Robert is literally blind but can see in a way that the narrator cannot. In the story, the narrator is a foil character of Robert. The narrator and Robert are opposites, and because of that, Robert plays an essential role in changing the narrator from a “blind” character to a character that can see both literally and metaphorically. By using this technique, Carver allows for the tension to dissipate. The point in the story where the most tension is relieved is when the narrator and Robert sketch a cathedral together. As they are coming to the end of the drawing, Robert says, “’take a look. What do you think?’” and the narrator replies with his eyes shut, “’It’s really something’” (291). Instead of opening his eyes to see the cathedral, the narrator keeps them closed. The narrator has an epiphany; he realizes that he is metaphorically blind, and now he is able to see in a new way. He does not think of the drawing in a worthless manner as he may have in the beginning, instead he leaves his eyes closed and appreciates the true beauty and meaning of the
Certain judgments are harmless, such as remembering one by an article of clothing that stands out, while other judgments prove ones character is flawed. In “Cathedral”, the narrator is portrayed as very insensitive when he mocks his wife’s poem about an experience she had with Robert when he touched her face. He says “I didn’t think much of the poem. Of course, I didn’t tell her that” (Cathedral 210). This shows that he lacks insight and understanding of even his own wife. If the narrator can’t even connect with his wife’s feelings, it is inferred that he also has trouble connecting with others feelings as well. In a similar instance, when the narrator’s wife educates him about Robert’s wife’s passing he says, “Her name was Beulah. Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman” (Cathedral 210). This highlights the narrator’s lack of perspective, as a sympathetic response would not have involved the origin of her name, but rather how the deceased spouse was handling the loss. Soon after, the narrator further proves his insensitivity to both his wife’s thoughts and Robert’s situation when he says “Right then my wife filled me in with more detail than I cared to know” (Cathedral 213). The author suggests that a dramatic change occurs after Robert and the narrator draw the cathedral by choosing the narrators closing words to be “It’s really something” (Cathedral 228). Because of this and the fact that he actively participates in the cathedral drawing, reader infers that the narrator truly does change his attitude towards Robert and perhaps his perspective on life as
When people chose whether to look or to see, they are choosing their way of interpreting things. By looking at something or someone you are interpreting them as for what it is, but to see takes a greater appreciation. In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, he exhibits the difference between looking at the physical aspect of a person or thing and seeing them with insight. Carver displays this through the characterization of the narrator and Robert, the irony in the narrator’s point of view on Robert’s marriage, and how the cathedral symbolizes the narrator change in seeing perception.
The narrator turns on the television and a cathedral appears on the screen. Robert does not know what a cathedral looks like, so the narrator starts to explain it to him. The narrator is having a hard time explaining what a cathedral looks like, but Robert comes up with an idea. He suggests that the narrator draw one, while Robert has his hands on top of the narrators hands. While they draw the cathedral together, the narrator "rises with the spirit of the blind man as, with eyes closed and pen on paper, he leads the blind man’s hand over what he imagines the contours of a cathedral would be". When they are done, Robert wants the husband to look, but he has his eyes closed because he "thought it was something (the narrator) ought to do". This is when the husband is no longer "blind" because he finally sees that Robert is person with the same thoughts and emotions as
When it comes to the sexual facet of his wife, he is protective of her even when sitting with a man with is incapable of valuing her physical appeal. For instance, when his wife fell asleep on the sofa, “she’d turn so that the robe had slipped away from her legs, exposing a juicy thigh. He reached to draw her robe back over her, and it was then he glanced at the blind man… he flipped the robe open again.” One may note that through these actions, the possessive side of that narrator is revealed only when his wife is physically vulnerable, though when it comes to her sincere intuition expressed through her passion of poetry, the blind man values her feelings that are exposed through the meaning of the text unlike her husband, who “doesn’t think much of the poem” or any poem because he does not recognize the worth of any mental object, such as thought, only the benefitiful physical ones. Through the use of an extended metaphor, Carver explains that “he just doesn’t understand poetry” much like he doesn’t understand the blind man, who does not gather wisdom by visually perceiving the world around him. The main character’s reliance on an ocular reality is further exemplified when he attempts to “imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her
In this context, the narrator finds himself unable to tell the blind man what he sees on the picture, he cannot describe a cathedral properly. To show him how perception actually operates, the blind man suggests drawing it at the same time allowing his hands to feel the lines and get to know the unfamiliar object. Closing his eyes, the narrator finally becomes conscious of the fact that to transform perception into experience, he needs more efforts and attempts. As an object, representing art, cathedral becomes the landmark by means of which Carver persuades the reader in his finding. However, it is not the only representation of art. As the story unfolds, the reader may observe that the narrator's wife writes poetry that makes her feel the environment deeply. The narrator, though, is astonished to find out how the blind man manages to live without the ability to look at the surroundings and his wife in