"Cathedral" a story about a man who is annoyed with his wife's old friend that is blind, but ends up teaching him a new way of viewing life. “Walk a mile in my shoes, see what I see, hear what I hear, feel what I feel, THEN maybe you'll understand why I do what I do, 'till then don’t judge me.” The advice to “walk a mile in someone else's shoes” means before judging someone, you must understand their challenges are in life and what they go though. This is clearly expressed in the story “Cathedral” by the narrator himself.
The unnamed narrator does not see Robert, the blind man, as a person, but as someone different. The grandmother, on the other hand, believes in her appearance and belief that is better than other people. After the challenges they both face, they end up finding enlightenment. In “Cathedral,” the narrator was not certain on how to describe the Cathedral to Robert. The narrator resorts to drawing and with a pen in his hand, he had realized that Robert “closed his hand over my hand” and asks the narrator to “close your eyes” as they drew the Cathedral (75-76).
Every so often a man experiences drastic changes in his body while being with his wife; his temperature rises, adrenaline increases, and his eyes dilate at the shock of what is happening. Indeed, this phenomena may mean several things some more pleasurable than others, but on occasion it is the actual state of anger and jealousy. In “Cathedral”, by Raymond Carver, the narrator is envious of the blind man, and is at the clemency of his emotions. However, as time passes the husband gradually overcomes his restless rage that blinds him, and becomes aware of the truth. This gradual transformation may be understood through the language and actions of the husband.
Cathedral how blindness is used as a metaphor. “Cathedral” is a passionate story by Raymond Carver about a blind man who is trying to find company after his wife passed away. Overall, the story is a funny situation, in which the blind man leads the narrator outside of his comfort zone. One of the biggest metaphors during the story is the blind man, or the blind leading the blind. At the end of the story, both men collaborate on a drawling of a cathedral.
Blindness applies as both a physical and mental ailment. Raymond Carver portrays this concept to readers with his short story, Cathedral. Told from the point of view of a nameless narrator, Cathedral tells a tale of healing mental blindness and, ultimately, curing one’s ignorance. As the nameless narrator encounters Robert, a blind friend of his wife, he changes from a man with a nearsighted mentality to an aware, empathetic human being. The traits, psyche, and point of view of the narrator of Raymond Carver’s Cathedral each drive the plot toward a theme of healing and transformation.
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
A Cathedral is a place for people to go and worship, to connect with God. By drawing the Cathedral the narrator is in some ways also making a connection. For the first time, he appears to be able to see. The narrator's ignorance and preconceptions fade away because he sees that although Robert has the gift of knowing and understanding people. There is also a sense of irony at the end of the story.
Communication is one of the most important aspects of human life. Without communication, we would be a primitive society of wild animals, unable to cooperate and achieve great feats, such as building the Pyramids, landing on the Moon, or organizing a democracy. All people rely on communication to express ideas that motivate positive societal and political change. Yet not everybody communicates in the same way. There are several thousand languages that people speak; there are several hundred thousand people around the world that suffer from disabilities such and blindness or deafness that require special means of communications such as braille or sign language.
Raymond Carver is said to be one the most influential American writers and poets in the 20th century, especially in his works of short stories. One of his most famous pieces is “Cathedral.” This well-known short story is the final piece in Carver’s collection Cathedral published in 1983. Carver includes much symbolism through the story’s plot, structure, point of view, tone, and character build. The depictions of each character’s experiences, the irony in the story, and hearing the narrator’s point of view in “Cathedral” work in harmony to support its themes that prejudice and ignorance as well as the nature of reality are present and change throughout the course of the story, and all lead to a strong character development by the close.
“His being blind bothered me” (Carver 1). In Raymond Carver’s short story Cathedral, Carver establishes an ignorant narrator, who is dependent on alcohol and fixated upon physical appearance; he juxtaposes the narrator to a blind man who sees with his heart rather than his eyes. Through indirect characterization, Carver contrasts the narcissistic narrator to the intuitive blind man while utilizing sight as a symbol of emotional understanding. He establishes the difference between looking and seeing to prove that sight is more than physical.
What if someone unexpected changed your way of thinking, permanently? What if God chose to send someone into your life to abolish you superficial thoughts? In both the stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, by Flannery O’Connor, and “Cathedral”, by Raymond Carver, the authors create main characters who lack faith and think superficially about life. However, in both stories, the authors send unexpected characters to act like mediums, for their job is to be the connection of the main character’s initial position in faith and their final position, revealed at the end of both stories. Even though the stories have a different plot and involve diverse kinds of characters, the final message and moral is the same.
Throughout the story the reader can affirm that the wife has a deep, strong relationship with the blind man. The wife and the blind man share an intimate and vulnerable moments together; one includes when she lets him touch her face so he can remember her. Similarly, the narrator gets to share an intimate moment with Robert that leads to an epiphany. The epiphany that the narrator experiences when drawing a cathedral refers to seeing life from Robert, the blind man’s, point of view and seeing the struggles as well as life experiences a blind man must encounter on a daily basis.
With this, readers could sense that the narrator is jealous, grouchy, and angry that Robert’s presence affects the narrator’s wife because of the connection between both the wife and Robert. The author prepares readers for the enlightenment when Robert came for a visit and that is how cathedral came about. The narrator explains, “The TV showed this one cathedral” (110). In this scene, the narrator and Robert bonded about the appearance of the cathedral. Instantly, the narrator says to Robert, “Do you have any idea what a cathedral is?
In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” he writes a story about a husband's journey to his epiphany. Robert, a blind man, teaches the husband how to see without his eyes. Often a person with the ability to see takes this for granted, leaving them only to see what is on the outside rather than seeing people, and things for what they really are. In this short story, Carver conveys the narrators epiphany through the symbol of the cathedral. Carver develops a story with symbolism throughout his story, beginning with the first line, “This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s
In his contemporary short story, “Cathedral,” Raymond Carver tells the story of an unnamed narrator, his wife, and an old friend, a blind man named Robert. Robert has come to visit the narrator’s wife, who is quite excited to see this man whom she hasn’t seen in ten years, yet the same can’t be said of the narrator who is noticeably and vocally uncomfortable about his visit. The story is told through the narrator’s first person point of view, showcasing his thoughts and the events that take place when Robert comes to visit. Carver highlights the theme of having the ability to see, but not truly seeing, through his use of colloquial language, and creation of relatable characters. “Cathedral” begins with the narrator informing the audience
