Analysis Of Raymond Carver 's ' Cathedral '

The narrator is not welcoming of his wife’s old friend, Robert, to his home. He categorizes Robert as part of his wife’s past, which makes him jealous and bitter towards Robert. He doesn’t care whether this visit is important to his wife, nor what role Robert has played in helping her over-come her suicide attempt and her divorce. The narrator is also jealous of his wife’s ex-husband and in the story “Cathedral” leaves him nameless, “why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?” (Carver 436). When the narrator, his wife, and Robert are sitting and conversing, the narrator is expecting his wife to talk to Robert about her “dear husband”; even though every comment he has made to his wife about Robert, and everything he does, seems to irritate and anger her.

The narrator has an issue with someone other than himself making his wife happy (even though he struggles to do so), especially a blind man. The first view of Robert confused the narrator, sporting a full beard, which to the narrator was not what the blind did.This first impression is a great example of the narrator’s small worldview, as he stated earlier, “My idea of blindness came from the movies” (Carver 417). As Robert got acquainted with the house the narrator offered him a drink, and with every one of Roberts responses, the narrator had some small remark that

I enjoyed reading “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. The story is realistic, relatable, and meaningful. The main protagonist, Bub, is arrogant and superficial. Because of Robert’s intimate relationship with his wife, he does not like the blind man. To cover up the fact that he is jealous, he states that he never had a blind man in his house before and that Robert does not have the characteristics he thought blind people have. Robert does not wear glasses, has a beard and etc. On page 90 he says, “I always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind.” This shows that even before he met Bub, he already had some preconceived picture of Bub that hinders him from really getting to know the real Bub. However, towards the end of the story he seems

The theme of this story plays a strong role of physical and psychological blindness. The narrator has sight and is not blind. But it seems as if the narrator is blinded by his own personality. He is too quick to judge a blind man who he has not even met yet but judge a blind man because of what he saw on television. Bub, the narrator says, “"And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing dogs-eye dogs." (Carver 299). It is also seen that Robert always refers the man as “the blind man” rather than Robert. The narrator sees him not as human-like because of his disability. The author lets the audience know that even though a man may

Although, the narrator struggles with the misunderstandings behind his wife’s and the blind man’s relationship it becomes apparent that Robert was in fact married. The narrator is proven to have jealous thoughts and a biased opinion of what blind people are like, but he realizes that Robert was now widowed and has lost a woman that “never [saw] herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one” (Carver 458). Robert was the “husband [that] could never read the expression on her face, be it misery or something better” (458). These revelations are just a few that possibly help the narrator start to feel some comfort behind the upcoming visit.

When both Robert and the narrator meet, he seems to be very hesitant and wary of asking Robert about the smallest things such as his train ride or even making comments about the old couch in his living room. After dinner, the two engage in small talk with the narrator's wife, the narrator seems to observe the conversation, “while they talked about major things that had come to pass for them in the past ten years. For the most part I listened” (Carver 110). The narrator often observes the two and in some ways it feels as if he's craving that sort of connection with his wife. Robert and the narrator's wife have a strong bond that's been created over ten years of sending tapes back and forth. The narrator expresses that both Robert and his wife share a deeper connection that he can ever understand. Robert while in conversation says “This beats the tapes, doesn’t it?” (Carver 111). This shows the narrator how their form of communication is very intimate and special. The narrator seems to value and crave that connection between the two, he watches Roberts gestures and the way he talks to his wife. The narrator goes on to call their conversation “harmless chit chat” (Caver 109).As the short story goes on, the narrator and Robert seem to

The narrator ‘s insensitivity was witness at the beginning of the story. He is not supportive of his wife after her announcement of the visit of an old friend name Raymond. Raymond was blind and his wife recently passed away. After hearing of the visit the narrator made his indifference for the blind man known: “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 299). He never expressed sympathetic toward Robert for his current lost, and failed to understand that familiar face might be comforting to him during his time of grief. Instead the protagonist continues to being insensitive, by insulting choices and action of others: “It was a little wedding- who want to go to such a wedding in the first place? – just the two of them, plus the minister and the minister’s wife” (Carver 301-302). Robert lost did not stop the main character from speaking about her in an

Even though Robert cannot see the narrator’s wife, he still has the ability to see and understand what she says. The narrator states, “The blind man made a tape. He sent her the tape. She made a tape. This went on for years.” After those statements, people understand that the wife wants someone to talk to and the narrator does not see that because he only looks at her and does not understand her wants and needs. Robert actually sees this and understands these wants and needs, and he is there to listen because he cannot see her, so he has to connect on a deeper level to understand her. The narrator only looks at his wife and does not put the effort into seeing because he thinks he is better than blind people are because he can see which is why he does not understand that she is unhappy in their relationship. Throughout the story the only dialogue between the narrator and his wife are little bits of conversation where he usually says something to annoy her, which shows he is only looking at the surface of her. By actually seeing through the surface of the narrator’s wife Robert makes himself a very important person in the wife’s life unlike the narrator who just looks at her, and does not care making himself worthless in his wife’s life because she cannot come talk to

Literacy Analysis of Cathedral In “Cathedral”, Raymond Carver writes a story where a man is upset about the arrival of his wife’s friend, simply because he is blind. The reader see the man’s reaction toward blind people and that causes him to consider what he is missing in his life. The primary focus is fear and dislike towards the Blind Man.

The protagonist, the narrator is closed minded and lacks communication with his wife, which clearly exhibits the distance and troubles in their relationship. The narrator is not happy with having the blind man, Robert, who he sees as a stranger over in his home which stirs up more trouble with his wife. ‘“You don’t have any friends, she said. Period, she said, “goddamn it, his wife’s just died! Don’t you understand that? The man’s lost his wife”’ (Carver 107). The wife is obviously mad with her husband who doesn’t understand the close relationship she has with Robert, which is a mutual understanding. Throughout their limited conversation the narrator asks about Roberts wife who has just

During the exposition, the narrator shows that he has no problems with eyesight and he is capable of looking. The narrator is not blind and thinks that because he can see he is better than Robert. Because of Robert’s physical blindness the narrator thinks that he is not able to have any kind of normal life. The narrator believes that the ability to see is everything, and puts no effort into looking and seeing anything beyond the surface. He looks at his house, wife, television, and at Robert when he arrives. How ironic is it that Robert, the blind man, has the ability to see on a much deeper level than the narrator? For example, even though Robert cannot physically see the narrator’s wife, he understands her a lot more than her husband. He has truly listened to her during the past ten years on the audiotapes she sends him. The only interactions shown between the narrator, the protagonist, and his wife are short exchanges in which he seems to get on her nerves. It is demonstrated in this conflict by Robert, the antagonist, that seeing involves a lot more than just looking.

The narrator beings the story by telling the readers about his wife’s blind friend that is coming to visit. The narrator isn’t very thrilled about the blind man coming to visit nor is he thrilled that the man is blind. The narrator explains how his wife had met. The narrator’s wife and the blind man became good friends, He explains that his wife and the blind man have kept in touch over the years by sending audio tapes back and forth. The narrator begins making fun of the man for being blind and mentions how awful the blind man’s wife must have felt knowing her husband was never able to know what she looked like. The day comes and the narrator’s wife goes to pick up the blind man who is introduced as Robert. When the narrator’s wife arrives back to the house the narrator is shocked when he sees the blind man. He begins describing what the blind man is wearing and how the blind man doesn’t carry a cane or have a blind walking dog and how the blind man doesn’t wear glasses like he pictured. They sat down to the table and ate dinner, after dinner they sat down in the living room. Robert begins talking to the narrator’s wife about his life the past ten years. The narrator observers and listens to their conversation but doesn’t really join in. Later the story the narrator’s wife falls asleep on the couch. The narrator not really knowing what to talk about with Robert turns the

The conflict between the narrator and his wife helps the theme in the story. In the story before Robert, arrived the wife was very frustrated with the narrator because of his failure to cooperate. She said “If you love me... you can do this for me…” From that quote one can tell that Robert visit was very important to the wife, and she just wanted everything to go smooth for Robert. Throughout the entire story the narrator was saying slick things, and being very indirect toward Robert and his wife. The narrator

In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral,” a blind man named Robert visits a man and his wife in their home for a short period. In the beginning, the husband is very rude to Robert due to his inability to see. However, by the end of Robert’s stay, the husband realizes that he is quite far from being a blind fool. By analyzing the theme, character, and conflict of the short story, the reader will be able to better understand what messages lay within Carver’s writing.

In the beginning of the story, the husband, who is the narrator of “Cathedral,” seems to be a very ignorant, uncaring man. Nesset wrote “Walled in by his own insecurities and prejudices, this narrator is sadly out of touch with his world and with himself, buffered by drink and pot and by the sad reality, as his wife puts it, that he has no ‘friends’” (Nesset 124). The narrator has no connection to himself or the outside world. He has no friends, as his wife points out, which goes to show he keeps to himself, but he still doesn’t fully understand who “himself” is, because he doesn’t have that connection to himself, thus leading to the drinking and drugs. He wasn’t used to change, so having a visitor come over to his house bothered him. The moment he saw Robert, the narrator began to change. When his wife pulled up with the blind man in the car and they got out of the car, he saw that Robert had a beard and he thought to himself, “This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say” (Carver 35). The narrator had expected to see the blind man in the way they showed them in the movies, but now that his idea of who Robert was as a person was being challenged, the change started to appear. Robert, who is a static character, is very essential in the change of the narrator. It is because Robert is the way he is, his marrying of a colored woman, his travels around the