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Point Of View In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

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In the story “Cathedral” Carver uses a variety of elements to contribute to his story. When the story begins the narrator is trouble by the visitor due to the visitor’s disability. However, the narrator is rude and inconsiderate oftentimes making remarks about the blinds man disability to see. In this story I see that Carver uses the narrator’s prejudgments as a reflection of today’s society. As the story progresses, readers can start seeing the difference between looking and seeing, the potential for greatness and kindness in humanity, and how the cathedral drawn by both the narrator and Robert represents true sight. There is a difference in the story between looking and seeing, meaning that looking is to physical vision and seeing is a far much deeper attribute. The narrator believes to be far more superior to Robert who is blind. The narrator at often times made comments about Robert’s trip on the train, and the ownership of a color TV. The narrator asked Robert, “Which side of the train did you sit on, by the way” having Robert respond, “Right side” demonstrating that the character is capable of seeing past the narrator’s rudeness (4 & 5). However, the cathedral scene seemed like the most astonishing. When the blind man asked the narrator to describe it the narrator had a hard time explaining to him, “but it looks like …show more content…

After, reading the story the reader can interpret that the truly blind person was the narrator himself. When the narrator finally puts his insecurities aside he actually starts to communicate with Robert the blind man. The story “Cathedral” shows various scenes of prejudgment, jealously, and indifference between the narrator and Robert. The story showed me that sometimes people shouldn’t judge by the exterior of people because in the interior they might have much more riches than

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