Raymond Carver's Use Of Humor In Cathedral

In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator describes the night when his wife’s blind friend, Robert, comes to visit. From the very beginning of the story, the husband is not thrilled about the upcoming visit and makes sure to express his disdain in various ways. This is because he does not understand Robert’s disability and how it both has and has not affected his way of life. It is because of this that the husband can be seen as a “blind” man as well.

Before the narrator draws the cathedral, his world is uncomplicated: he can see, and Robert cannot. But when he attempts to describe the cathedral that’s shown on television, he realizes that Robert will “have to forgive [him], [for he] can’t tell [Robert] what a cathedral looks like” (Carver 41). More important, he decides that the reason he can’t find those words is that “cathedrals don’t mean anything special to [him]” (Carver 41). When he takes the time to draw the cathedral he has to really think about it and vision it in his mind.

What would one expect to be the attitude of a man whose wife has just invited, what seems a lot like a past love interest, to come stay with them? It is such a character as the narrator that Raymond Carver portrays in his famous story “Cathedral”. Said visitor is a blind man who goes by the name of Robert. The narrator, who’s name we never learn, shows no sympathy towards the man throughout the story, even after finding out about the loss of his beloved wife. It isn’t until the two men come together to sketch a Cathedral that the narrator is able to change his perspective after “seeing” what he couldn’t “see” prior to this epiphanic experience.

After filling the readers in, he picks up the story with a conversation between him and his wife before the visit. He expresses some uncomfortableness with him staying at their house since he does not know Robert, and his blindness made his nervous. His wife asks him to try and make him comfortable

The couple is grieving the death of their son, each in their own way, and find it hard to relate, while the couple from "Cathedral" struggles to relate in the wife 's relationship with the blind man and her desire to be understood. The phone continually rings with the anxious baker wanting Scotty 's birthday cake to be picked up. Anger towards the anonymous caller is used to unite the couple

By doing so, the audience experiences everything through the eyes of the narrator. The narrator, also being the story’s protagonist, attempts the attract the sympathy of the reader through his perspective of the exposition. For example, in the beginning of the short story, the narrator explains the blind man’s connection to his wife. It is during this phase of narrative that we get glimpses of a jealous undertone that will follow the narrator for the majority of the piece. This is first demonstrated on page 33 when he describes his wife’s ex-fiance: “Her officer—why should he have a name?

In my understanding of the story “Cathedral” by the author, Raymond Carver, in the beginning, the protagonist is not keen on the idea of his wife's recently widowed Blind friend, Robert staying the night at their home. The narrator seems to have a negative preconception about blind people, believing that they cannot live an ordinary life because they do not physically see the world as he does. Throughout the story, I think there were clues about how the blind man can see, through the use of his other senses, for example, the way that the blind man could see the narrator's wife was by touching her face, tracing her facial features with his fingers. At dinner, the blind man's sense of smell and touch guided him to eat and drink like everyone

In Cathedral, the speaker at first is very uncomfortable with the idea of having a blind man stay at his house. He is a very shallow person, never gives much thought to anything, and he does not try to connect to his wife on a deeper level. At the end of the story, the blind man and the speaker are alone, and the blind man asks him what a cathedral looks like. The speaker says that he cannot describe it, that he does not believe in God, so a cathedral would not have much importance to him. The blind man then has the speaker draw what a cathedral looks like, and he placed his hand on top of the speaker’s while he drew.

It could be the drinks they shared acting as social lubricant, but the tone of his attitude toward Robert changes for the better. He is impressed by Robert’s ability to navigate through the social occasions of meeting new people and sharing a meal and drinks. He begins to realize that Robert’s blindness is not nearly the handicap that he had imagined. When the narrator and Robert are watching TV, there is an educational program on about cathedrals. The narrator attempts to describe a cathedral to Robert, but is unable to do so.

We all know that satirical stories are written to attract readers; we, as readers, somehow relate to them as we compare and contrast them to our own lives, looking unto both sympathetic and unsympathetic characters, and questioning which are we most like. Raymond Carver, who is noted for his “minimalistic type of prose,” proves what we know of the typical satire. In his short story, “Cathedral,” we realize the difference between looking and seeing. The sympathetic character of the story is Robert, a blind man who sees the world not with sight but with insight. He meets a man whose vision is intact but fails to see the world at its best.

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” we are introduced to a narrator who tries to make it very clear to the reader that because he can physically see, he is better than the blind man, Robert. However, as we continue through the narrator’s interactions with Robert, it is shown that the narrator is actually quite blind to the world until Robert shows him otherwise. That is to say, the narrator can physically look at things around him, but lacks the kind of seeing that entails looking at things on a deeper level of engagement. This is the kind of seeing that allows Robert to truly see and understand things at a deeper level that the narrator would be oblivious to, such as his wife’s feelings, or even his own emotions. We get a clear vision about

In Raymond Carver’s "Cathedral," the relationship between the narrator and his wife is one of distanced silence and isolation. This is caused by the narrator’s constant drinking and smoking of marijuana as well as his wife’s responses to feelings of loneliness. The narrator does not spend enough time with his wife but rather with Robert, the blind man. The relationship is also marred by the narrator’s jealousy over his wife’s relationships with other men, such as Robert and her first husband. The narrator points out that the wife’s first husband had first enjoyed her favors and when the blind man arrives, she showers him with attention.

The narrator in “ Cathedral” has the characteristics of a white sheltered man, who lives in the beginning of the 80’s. He is the reflection of Archie Bunker, from the hit show, All in the Family. The narrator lives in the sub-burbs of Connecticut, where his ignorance, is able to blossom. Where his way of thinking is universal. The narrator has a lot of biases views of people, especially of the blind.

Within modern day society, there are many people who have eyesight cannot “see.” This sad truth is reflected within the husband who cannot connect with his wife because he displays a lack of insight. As the protagonist of the short story Cathedral, the husband had to undergo a certain change within the story in order to connect with his wife, who actually tends to be the antagonist. Through the usage of the husband’s language, behavior, and interaction with other characters–the author, Raymond Carver proves that it is possible to “see” once one accepts change.