Comparing Cathedral And Little Miss Sunshine By Raymond Carver

The inevitable change mankind goes through can be their greatest triumph or their trajectory to downfall. Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” and the movie Little Miss Sunshine, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, exemplify the behavioral developments that everyday human beings go through, whether the most minuscule improvement or their complete rebirth as a person. Even the smallest changes in a person can have the most profound effects on how they act and think. The minor changes and moments people endure build up over time and create blossoms of someone new. While every character in Little Miss Sunshine goes through some type of change, Richard Hoover’s change makes him go from a narrow-minded man to an empathic father. Richard

Loving someone or something is not exclusive to things people need to see with their eyes, but instead how they feel. Little Miss Sunshine shows the viewer that a minuscule single sentence can alter one's entire personality and life. Dwayne Hoover’s entire drive for life is to fly planes, and it is so extreme he takes a vow of silence. His lack of empathy towards his family is evident after he writes down “I hate everyone” (Dayton and Faris). However, the one thing he cares about in life is stripped from him in seven words “You can’t fly jets if you’re colorblind” (Dayton and Faris). Dwayne has lost all hope and quickly begins to sink to the bottom of despair. However, his little sister hugs him, allowing himself to realize how selfish and delusional he was to hang up all his happiness in flying jets. At this moment he accepts all the issues of the people he has tried this whole time to escape. The pain of his dream crumbling does not disappear; however, he puts his focus on his little sister and his family, something that was barren from the start. From the beginning, he starts as a boy who is egocentric, irritable, and callous to a man who is caring, accepting, and overall conscious of others and how they have their issues, but are still