The Blind Husband In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

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Meeting someone for the first time, results in many awkward moments. In the short story “Cathedral” Raymond Carver opens the story with a husband who meets a blind man for the first time. The husband only knows the blind man from what his wife has mentioned to him. Carver starts off by building connections with his audience through the use of mid-diction. As the story unravels Carver inputs low-diction to show how the blind man and the husband are bonding and are taking the time to get to know each other. Through the first paragraphs the husband (narrator) develops many comments and short thoughts. The husband begins to generate ideas of the blind man and starts to say, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit...My idea of blindness came from the movies...A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 174). The words and the pattern of ideas are comparable to how we examine people and generate thoughts about them, especially when we first meet someone. Carver incorporates the husband’s thought process to connect with the audience, through similar …show more content…

This is due to the fact that the blind man and the husband are bonding and building a relationship. They begin to talk like if they were close friends. The husband asked the blind man. “ if he wanted to smoke some dope with [him]... ‘I’ll try some with you’ the blind man said. ‘Damm right’ said the husband” (Carver 179). Carver incorporates the slang, “dope” and the vernacular words, “Damm right” to show the companionship the the men started to form. In addition, Carver applied these words because they are common when we speak with our close friends. However, if we are not speaking to our friends we try to speak with the most professional language possible, but since both the blind man and husband are building a relationship that “beats [the] tapes” they are talking as if they have been friends for a

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