Raymond Carver Cathedral Essay

It is unclear whether or not the husband’s dislike for the blind man is fueled by jealousy or by ignorance. It is clear that the husband’s idea of what the company of a blind man would be like is very stereotypical because he bases his opinion on what he has seen in the movies, “In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed.” (Carver 473). The husband bases his judgment from movies and decides, “A blind man in my house was not something I was looking forward to.” (Carver 473).

In the short story “Cathedral” by Reymond Carver, the narrator has a closed mindset about life. He has made up his own world where he only looks and not sees what is behind everything. The narrator wife worked for a blind man who lost his wife years back, she had developed a friendship with the blind man, but the narrator does not enjoy this friendship. She invited the blind man over the house, maybe Robert will change the narrator point of view.

He starts by being rude towards him coming over “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (200). The husband automatically judged the man for being blind rather than getting to know him. His words seem as if being blind is a bad thing. After the husband gets to know the blind man better he becomes kind towards him.

"Cathedral" is a short story ultimately about enlightment, finding something more meaningful and deeper with in one self. Although from an observing point of view nothing more in the story happens then a blind man assisting the narrator in drawing a cathedral. Although as known, the narrator's experience radically differs from what is actually "observed". He is enlightened and opened up to a new world of vision and imagination. This brief experience will have a life long effect on him. The reason for this strong and positive effect is not so much the relationship made between the blind man and the narrator or even the actual events leading up to this experience, but rather it is mostly due to what was drawn by the narrator.

“And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed...A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.” The main character and narrator of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” harbors such predetermined assumptions about his wife’s visiting friend, Robert, who happens to be blind. Throughout the story, the narrator describes his wife’s past, which includes details about her first love, how her acquaintance with Robert came to be, and Robert’s impression on her life in the preceding years as they exchanged audiotapes to keep up with one another. Robert’s arrival and company begins to defy and change the narrator’s postulated ideas about blind individuals and even influences the narrator to act more open-minded. Nearing the end of the story, when the television portrays certain European cathedrals, Robert requests that the narrator draw a cathedral with him and has him close his eyes, which ultimately alters his understanding of himself and the world. As many elements of the story reflect Raymond Carver’s own life, the audience can gain a sense of his personality through the narrator and Robert. Through the narrator’s need for intoxication, narrative style, and his depiction of his wife and Robert, the irony that even though the narrator and his wife are not blind, they are still missing a sense of satisfaction in their lives while Robert, unable to see, understands the world and the key to happiness.

When she showed her husband a poem she wrote, he said “In the poem, she talked about what she had felt at the time…I can remember I didn't think much of the poem” (page 35). These poems represent the important times in her life, and his indifferent treatment of the works as something trivial shows that he has trouble connecting to his wife on a deeper level. While he can not give more than a passing thought to his wife’s literary art, he believes the blind man’s wife, Beulah, is the unlucky one. The husband said of Beulah, “I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led” all because her husband could never look at her (page 37). He becomes fixated on how unhappy Beulah must have been, because he does not consider that there are any satisfying qualities in someone who can not see. His narrow-minded attitude is clear in his discussion of his wife compared to the blind man’s wife.

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

In the text “Cathedral” the narrator begins telling us about a blind man. He is very judgemental towards him and maybe even feels uncomfortable. He had ethnocentrism about the blind man. He thought that he would wear glasses and have a cane etc. I think he feels so uncomfortable because the blind man and his wife were so close.

He only sees people for what they are on the outside, but is blind to appreciating the true beauty of a person's inner self. You begin to understand this better when the narrator goes to say prayers, and this baffles the wife. The narrator says, "Now let us pray, I said, and the blind man lowered his head. My wife looked at me, her mouth agape. Pray the phone won't ring and the food doesn't get cold, I said." Now normally prayers are said to show appreciation to all that God has blessed you with. The narrator prays in a cold type of way, because he cannot believe in a God if he does not appreciate the beauty of ones inner self. 



     Choice of point of view can change the tone and entire meaning gained from a story. The tone of this story would have been much different if it were written from the wife’s point of view. She would not have been seen as the static nagging wife stereotype, the husband himself would have probably be viewed as unsupportive and a slacker, and the reader would have gained a better understanding of who this blind man was. However, for the sake of the story, the importance of the blind man is that he is blind. This is what is important to the narrator and this is what the

Raymond Carver’s short story Cathedral shows how Robert, who was a blind man decided to visit a old friend who was a woman. This woman had a husband who was not to open to having someone physical unable to see in his house. Early on the husband was very stereotypical toward Robert, until there were watching a television show about the cathedral. Being that Robert, could not see, he asked the husband to describe the cathedral to him, but he could not find words to describe it, so the husband drew the cathedral. After drawing the cathedral the husband realized that there is not much difference between him Robert. Raymond Carver uses conflict, characterization, and irony to show the difference between looking and seeing.

Prejudice, jealous, insecure--- open-minded, kind, and confident. A see-saw this weighed downed can bear constant strife. It is evident that seeing another individual who exceeds in what one lacks, can at times cause sheer hatred. However, sometimes, this see-saw comes into a perfect balance. Sometimes, it is individuals like this that are able to shift us into a positive course. Raymond Carver, an American writer, believed solely that. In his short story, “Cathedral”, an ordinary event morphed into an emotional and insightful one. In the story, the narrator illustrates a typical dinner where his wife’s friend, Robert, visits. Through the use of the participant editorial omniscient point of view, and the juxtaposition of Robert’s kind character, Carver allows us to see the narrator’s inner-self: a judgemental, envious, and self-conscious person. As a result, when Robert, who is on the other side of the see-saw-- an open-minded, caring, and kind individual-- is placed alongside the narrator, an interesting reaction occurs: Robert

As his wife begs him to be kind to her friend, he says, “I don’t have any blind friends.” (273) Most of the dismissiveness we see within the main character is his lack of understanding of the relationship his wife can share with this “blind man.” This changes towards the end of the story as he spends one on one time with Robert while his

The narrator seems to be somewhat jealous at first of the relationship between his wife and their visitor. He says, “She told him everything, or it seemed to me” (100). His wife had worked for the blind man for one summer ten years ago, yet she

As we see throughout the short story, our narrator is slowly realizing that he himself was the blind one, that all of his prior thoughts to blind people were out of ignorance and the lack of