In "The Compartment," one of Raymond Carver's bleakest stories, a man passes through the French countryside in a train, en route to a rendevous with a son he has not seen for many years. "Now and then," the narrator says of the man, "Meyers saw a farmhouse and its outbuildings, everything surrounded by a wall. He thought this might be a good way to live-in an old house surrounded by a wall" (Cathedral 48). Due to a last minute change of heart, however, Meyers chooses to stay insulated in his "compartment" and, remaining on the train, reneges on his promise to the boy, walling out everything external to his selfish world, paternal obligation included.
Meyers's tendency toward insularity is not, of course, unique among the characters in Cathedral or among the characters of earlier volumes. In Will You Be Quiet, Please? there is the paranoid self-cloistering of Slater and
Arnold Breit, and in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love we read of James Packer's cantankerous,self-absorbed disgruntlement about life's injustices. In Cathedral appear other, more extreme versions of insularity,from a husband's self-imposed confinement to a living room in "Preservation" to another's pathetic reluctance to leave an attic garret in "Careful." More strikingly in Cathedral than before, Carver's figures seal themselves off from their worlds, walling out the threatening forces in their lives even as they wall themselves in, retreating destructively into the claustrophobic inner enclosures of self. But corresponding to this new extreme of insularity, there are in several stories equally striking instances where--pushing insularity the other way--characters attempt to throw off their entrapping nets and, in a few instances, appear to succeed. In Cathedral, and in Cathedral only, we witness the rare moments of their comings out, a process of opening up in closed-down lives that comes across in both the subjects and events of the stories and in the process of their telling, where self-disenfranchisement is reflected even on the level of discourse, rhetorically or structurally, or both.
As one might expect, "de-insulation" of this kind necessarily involves the intervention of others: the coming out of a self-enclosed figure depends upon the influence of another being--a baker or a babysitter or blind man, o...
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...alk About When We Talk About Love. New York: Random House, 1981.
--. Where I'm Calling From. 1st edition. Franklin Center, PA: Franklin Library, 1988.
--. Will You Be Quiet. Please? New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977.
Howe, Irving. "Stories of Our Loneliness." New York Times Book Review. 11 Sep 1983: 42-43.
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Charles W. Mayer. Macomb, IL: Western Illinois University, 1987. 142-50.
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The blind man is appealing to readers because of the fact that he proves to be a good friend and listener to the narrator’s wife. The wife and blind man have kept in touch by exchanging audio tapes over the years. The wife feels comfortable sharing all aspects of her life with him. The husband expands on this by saying “She and I began going out, and of course she told her blind man about it” (5). This quote proves that the blind man provides a sense of comfort to the wife who cannot find the same sense of security in her own husband. The blind man is friendly and makes an attempt to befriend the husband even though he is consistently rude to him. The blind man tells the narrator he will stay up with him to talk even after his wife has gone to sleep. He says he feels “like me and her monopolized the evening” (83). The blind man respectfully says to the narrator “[y]ou’re my host” and wants to be fair and make sure the husband doesn’t feel left out during his visit (102). He is also very understanding and patient with the husband. This characteristic is especially proven when the narrator tries, but fails at explaining the appearance of a cathedral to the blind man. He apologizes for not doing a good job. The blind man understands and reassures him by saying “I get it, bub. It’s okay. It happens. Don’t worry about it” (110). He is aware that his
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Although many critics have written numerous accounts of Richard Carver’s "Cathedral" as being about revelation and overcoming prejudice, they have overlooked a very significant aspect: the unfolding of marital drama. The story tells of how a close outside friendship can threaten marriage by provoking insecurities, creating feelings of invasion of privacy, and aggravating communication barriers.
In order to develop a real understanding of Raymond Carver’s text, the complex relationship between the father and the daughter must first be understood. The relationship between the girl and her father is the foundation of the entire story, and the ending cannot possibly be understood without a full recognition of how they interact. It is evident that there has been a vast change between the father when he was younger and when he was older with his daughter. Throughout the story that h...
Upon reading Raymond Carver's short story of the Cathedral one will notice the literary devices used in the short story. When analyzing the story completely, one then understands the themes, motifs, metaphors, and the overall point of the piece. This leaves the reader with an appreciation of the story and a feeling of complete satisfaction.
In Raymond Carver’s story “Cathedral” the narrator learns what it means to “see” through someone who cannot. To see is to be able to view the things around us while putting aside preconceived notions or fear about these objects or people. In order for this to occur once must overcome what they feel is out of the ordinary and learn to accept things as they are. At first the narrator is doesn’t accept the man and uncomfortable around Robert. The narrator soon comes to understand this when he puts aside his fears, and judgments that he can see more than what meets the eye, and the freedom that comes along with this seeing.
In Raymond Carver's Cathedral “appear...extreme versions of insularity,from a husband's self-imposed confinement to a living room in 'Preservation' to another's pathetic reluctance to leave an attic garret in 'Careful'” (Meyer). One of Carver's chief goals in cathedral is to criticize people who fail, in one way or another, to communicate with society. In almost every short story, the main character suffers from insularity due to a horrible event in his or her life, alcoholism, or a failure to consider others' thoughts and feelings. The stories, “Careful,” “Preservation,” “Cathedral,” and “The Compartment” easily represent the entire novel's theme of the inability to relate with others. Each of these stories shows a slightly different degree of affliction, circumstance, and character types making the entire novel effective to a broad audience. Carver wants people to stop thinking that “[the loss of the ability to interact with others] is something that happens to other people” (Carver 25)
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.
Breit, Harvey. Shirley Jackson. The New York Times June 26, 1949, 15. Rpt. in Modern American Literature, Vol. II. Ed. Dorothy Nyren Curley et al. New York: Continuum, 1989.
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.
Carver, Raymond. Cathedral. “The Norton Introduction to Literature.” New York: W.W Norton &, 2014. Print.
Carver develops the narrator’s tone chronologically from disdainful to cautious to introspective by deepening his relationship with Robert to express the false perception of strangers that assumptions can produce.
Caldwell, Tracey. "Raymond Carver's 'Cathedral'." Literary Contents in Short Stories (2006): 1-8. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 Nov. 2010
Raymond Carver uses strategic dialogue and point of view to articulate themes in his short stories. Another tactic Carver uses in his writing is analyzing basic human skills such as the ability to define love through intimate relations between characters that reveal deeper meaning. In the short stories “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” and “Cathedral,” he investigates relationships and how the characters develop the true meaning of love. While reading these two short stories the reader is able to comprehend the similarities that draw Carver’s works together. Through these stories the reader is also able to understand his outlook on love and human kinship. Carver uses certain strategies and techniques that allow him to bring a parallel between his different stories, but there are also definite things that set each story apart.
Klinkowitz, Jerome and Patricia B Wallace. The Norton Anthology of Americal Literature. Seventh. Vol. Volume D. New York City: Norton, 2007, 2003, 1998, 1994, 1989, 1985, 1979. 5 vols.