The short stories "Cathedral "and "A Small Good Thing" by Raymond Carver show the struggles of two American families and how the hardships brought new relationships and understanding to the families and those around them. "Cathedral" depicts the struggle to have a deeper connection not based on physical appearance. "A Small, Good Thing" shows the struggle to overcome the pain brought by the death of a loved one. Raymond Carver 's texts work together to show that by accepting the help of others the characters are better able to understand their own needs and struggles. Americans are easily blinded by their comfortable middle class lives and need to be reminded, what it means to have hardships through a new perspective.
The syntax of a story is the arrangement of words and phrases used in order to create strong sentences in a language. These two elements together can help develop tone, which is the general character or attitude of a piece of writing. Raymond Carver uses words that make the diction very simple, and easy to understand. Although the piece itself is easy to understand, the lack of strong diction in the dialogue makes it difficult to understand the character’s emotions and thoughts throughout the breakage of the family. The story seems to avoid using complex vocabulary, but instead uses a combination of words in which a reader can infer hidden meanings.
Especially in literature, when two, young characters fall in love too quickly, there is bound to be a conflict, as shown in the short story. “Everything Stuck to Him” by Raymond Carver, tells the heartfelt story about a man and his daughter reflecting on an event that occurred in their past. Throughout the short story, Carver delivers meaning and development of the plot with his minimalist style of writing leading the readers to make inferences. Also, creating a frame story -- a story within a story --provides a proper background of information and the growth of the characters as they have aged. Finally, Carver’s specific use of diction and symbolism enhances the story.
In the beginning of the story, he was harsh and unloving towards his wife’s blind friend, although by the end he was compassionate and sympathetic to the blind man. At the beginning of “The Cathedral” the narrator is deemed as a non-loving, bad-mannered, and insensitive man, although one evening spent with the blind man
Raymond Carver wrote the interesting short story, “Cathedral” about a blind man who can ‘see’ and the narrator, a man who has his sight, but is blind. The narrator is the protagonist in Carver’s story and is seen as a terrible communicator. Carver purposely has the character start off in a bad place and end up in a better one. The author characterizes the narrator and uses the plot of the story to show the concept that someone can have all senses and still be disconnected from reality and not understanding of their surroundings. For most of the story, the narrator is characterized as arrogant, out of touch with reality, and insensitive.
The husband’s actions and behavior change drastically throughout “Cathedral”. He went from a stubborn attitude towards Robert to being sympathetic at the end. The very first line of Cathedral the husband refers to Robert as “this blind man”, which gives you a little taste of his attitude towards blind people. The husband isn’t very enthusiastic about Robert coming to stay with him and his wife because Robert
Midterm english essay Throughout the short story Cathedral by Raymond Carver you are made to think the narrator has changed. You see him get drunk and high with a blind man. Regardless of the momentary illusion of change, the narrator simply reinforces his own patterns of drunken selfishness thus proving his state of nature. In the beginning the narrator of the story is not literally blind but does not show any insight or self-awareness. He seems to push away his wife and this can bee seen in the beginning when he talks about her poems.
In the Raymond Carver stories “Cathedral” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” communication plays a major role in developing the story. In this essay I will analyze how the theme of communication plays both similar and different roles in developing the meaning of these two stories to further understand how communication effects the characters. Communication is an important part of the story to understand because it gives the reader a better understanding of the moral of the story as well as important life influences of the author. “Cathedral” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” are excellent to stories to compare their theme of communication because communication gives each story a unique meaning, but both stories use communication in different ways to do so. By exploring the different types of communication in these two stories it will be easier to understand the moral meaning of the stories but also how different types of communication can be more effective than verbal communication.
Raymond Carver captures readers’ interest by making assumptions because he doesn’t include every detail. He creates the suspense when he makes a tone and depth in the story. For instance at the beginning, the reader must already guess who the mother is writing
“Cathedral” is a short and warm story written by Raymond Carver. The author portrays the story in the first person narrative. Carver presents the interaction between an unnamed couple and a blind man by the name of Robert, who is visiting them. The story is told by the husband, the narrator, who is a prejudiced, jealous, and insecure man with very limited awareness of blindness. This theme is exposed through Carver’s description of the actions of the narrator whose lack of knowledge by stereotyping a blind man.