Symbols In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

Throughout “Letter One,” two central ideas emerge: individuality is the most important thing in writing and beauty comes from within your soul. Rilke’s word choice develops the two central ideas and establishes tone throughout the three sections. In the first section of “Letter One,” Rilke writes in a very serious and

The same because he is not good at tennis. Different because of the language they speak. One similarity between the actions in the beginning and the end is that Ryan is bad at tennis. In the beginning he was naturally bad. Although it didn’t help that he didn’t understand what the teacher was saying.

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

Carver highlights the narrator’s prejudice in the opening section of the story in order to reveal how the narrator’s bias against blind people in general leads to a preconceived negative opinion on Robert. From the outset, the narrator acknowledges his prejudice by mentioning that his “idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed” (Carver, 1). The narrator’s negative prejudice is not caused by knowing a blind man; rather, it is derived from an external factor, demonstrating how the narrator has formulated an opinion on people he has never met. Consequently, the narrator assumes that Robert will conform to the negative stereotype present in his mind, and is unpleased about Robert’s visit.

In the works of Literature an epiphany is “a moment of profound insight or revelation by which a character’s life is greatly altered” (24). In the short story “Cathedral” Raymond Carver uses epiphany to draw on the theme, blinded views can alter someone’s behavior. On the realistic level, epiphany advances the plot and character development because they are the basis for the story’s central action. They also help define the narrator and play a vital part in revealing the story’s theme. The following changes in the character’s views have shown an evident development.

The narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of the characters, also known as omniscient, which helps the reader identify the isolation Griffin puts himself in. Griffin is an experimental investigator and he was fascinated by being invisible and what he could do that visible people could not do, for instance, fraud or crime with little to no repercussions. After prosperously testing his procedure on a feline he tested it on himself. From Griffin’s point of view, becoming invisible would be freeing from the state he was in, albino. Being an albino had multiple setbacks because people were more fascinated by his rare condition and less intrigued by knowing him as a person.

The poem “Where There’s a Wall” by Joy Kogawa uses various imagery and symbolism to further enhance the effectiveness of the poem and its message. Like most other poems, “Where There’s a Wall” contains several layers of meaning, which is why it requires the reader to dig through the little details and examples in order to see the big picture. One segment of the poem makes reference to peaceful methods to approach the obstacle of a wall standing in one’s way. It states, "Where there's a wall/ there's a way/ around, over, or through/ there's a gate/ maybe a ladder/ a door." The gate, ladder and door represent solutions to overcome this obstacle, and these solutions represent “the right way” to approach this obstacle.

“Digging” shows how people can be rooted in a family, tied to traditions and to a place where they come from. The poem begins with the speaker sitting at his desk and holding a pen in his hand: Craig Raine had an impressive influence on the calm world of British poetry of the second part of XX century. He made the stylistic revolution of visual comparisons, wordplay and puns. As a representative of so-called “the Martian School” Raine taught his reader to become an alien in our familiar world in order to free the abilities of perception and let it grow in the field of experience. Raine could easily familiarize the familiar, his gentle irony became his trademark and well-known examples are dismantled for quotes.

“The Red Room,” “The Door in the Wall,” and “The Empire of the Ants” are a few short stories written by Wells. Within these short stories, H.G. Wells illustrates similar themes and literary devices while exploiting his unique writing style to tie these works together. Several prevalent themes are shown throughout Wells’ short stories. According to Kathleen Wilson in Short Stories for Students, Science and Technology remain the most used of these themes as shown in the quote, “‘The Door in the Wall’ poses an issue which Wells returned to repeatedly in his writing: the conflict between aesthetics and science” (Wilson 84).

According to Samuel Butler, "A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog, but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide." There is no one as blind as an individual who will not see. Individuals who pay no attention to what they already know are the most deluded. In King Lear, blindness is a reoccurring theme, and this quote connects to the protagonist, Lear, who is not physically blind, but is blind in a sense that he lacks understanding and careful judgement. It is only when Lear goes mad and experiences an immense breakdown does he finally realize his mistakes.

In Jon Sweeney’s lecture and book, “ When Saint Francis Saved The Church”, he spoke about Francis leading a revolutionary life. There were two points that helped support with Francis leading a revolutionary life. Those points were friendship and poverty. Sweeney spoke about how important friendship and poverty was to Francis. These points helped with Francis learning what kind of person he would be and do with his life.

No one liked him because he just didn’t do things everyone else did. But