The Blind Husband In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

The Cathedral by Raymond Carver is the story of a man, the narrator, who meet a blind person named Robert for the first time. He does not want to meet Robert, but because Robert is an old friend of his wife and an important person to her, he has no choice. During Robert’s visit, the husband is so uncomfortable and feeling jealous about his wife friendship with Robert. We can feel his jealousy, while the Robert and the narrator’s wife having conversations in the beginning of the story, “And then my dear husband came into my life”—“something like that. But I heard nothing of the sort.

“I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And being blind bothered me” (104) The narrator has no knowledge of experiencing seeing a blind person. “My idea of blindness came from the movies” (104).

In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator struggles with an internal conflict that involves him never being able to be in a vulnerable or sensitive state, especially when he is with his wife. The narrator creates suspense by having the reader wait until the end to realize what the blind man was referring to when he states, “From all you’ve said about him, I can only conclude—” (Carver 35). The reader can observe that the blind man was explaining that the husband was missing out on all aspects of life and the little things the world has to offer. The husband was so closed-minded, that he was missing out on having a deeper connection with his wife.

Brother knows about Doodle’s poor condition and ignores it when he is teaching his crippled brother how to walk. Brother isn’t doing this great act to be kind, he is doing this because he is embarrassed to have a brother with disabilities. “They did not know that I did it for myself, that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me

(Shanley 6). Father tells the congregation that he has done something wrong but he does not tell anyone what he did. This sermon is right before Sister James finds out about Flynn and Donald’s relationship. When Sister James and Sister Aloysius confront the situation to Father Flynn, He denies everything. He says, “It was a private matter.”

Elisa’s emptiness affected her marriage with her husband, Henry, who both did not communicate with another on what they both desire. According Gregory J. Palmerino, he describes “The third movement of the story clearly illustrates the couple 's problem with conflict and their overall inability to engage each other without evasion” (Palmerino). Palmerino interpretation of Elisa and her husband, Henry, is that they are incapable of communicating with each because they both chose to be avoiding one another. According to Palmerino, “Henry 's response to his wife 's indirect efforts to arouse a more authentic reaction from him fails miserably when he says, ‘You look so nice!’ (11)” (Palmerino).

The narrator asked this question without taking into consideration for Robert’s disability. He was trying to do what his wife asked of him. Robert went on to answer the question with no problem. Robert has been blind for some time so he knows and understands what people might say or how they might react to him and his disability. After this the narrator began to watch tv and allow his wife and Robert to catch up.

In fact, Michael Kimmage notices in the letter that both “father and son have failed in their acquired roles” (Kimmage 1) since Kafka also mentions throughout the letter that he is unsatisfied with how his father treated him. However, it seems that Kafka does not show remorse, or even signs of wanting to make up to his father after he stated, “I am equally entirely blameless” (Kafka

From the excerpt “Father”, it reveals “ I’m positive my father never understood why I wrote.” , and as a result, Alice and her father never got an opportunity to connect with each

To begin with, the author Albert Camus’s views and personal life of society contributed to Meursault’s behavior and the story’s tone. It is implied that Meursault felt no grief when his mother died because Camus did not have a good relationship with his mother, especially after his father’s death. He failed multiple marriages, was denied from military enlistment, and lost his jobs. After these occurrences, Camus does not really feel any meaning to life. In the novel, Meursault normally feels indifferent toward events that the average person would have at least some emotion.

Robert’s wife has recently died and he used to work for the narrator’s wife. Robert comes to visit the narrator’s home and the narrator is not happy about this because he believes blind people to be miserable and gloomy based solely on what he has absorbed from the movies. At the end of the first paragraph, he says, “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (1.1). Little to the narrator’s knowledge, his wife and Robert had been using audio tape to correspond over ten years, and have much past history with each other. The narrator’s wife makes sure he knows to make Robert comfortable, and if he doesn’t it shows that he does not love her.

The widow Douglas wanted to make Huck into a proper civilian, yet Huck refused; and thus ran away from them. A direct example of Huck being mischievous is when he considered what Miss Watson had told him about prayer, but decides that it is not for him; something that 's considered a horrible way of thinking during the time to book took place. An indirect example would be when Huck is viewed to be in the wrong by his peers and elders. The way Huck isn 't like the other boys and the gang is that he doesn 't have his biological parents.

Henry 's character changes dramatically from the relationships he forms with his father, son, and Keiko. To start off with, Henry does not communicate much with his mother or father because of the language barrier. His father is very caught up in is own life, and does not pay much attention to Henry. " He and his father had settled into a pattern of noncommunication months ago (166). This makes Henry independent and reserved.

For Mary C? She suffered from depression, PTSD and just didn 't know how to give and get love as she never had examples. Imogene? She was just his comfort during all this, but his heart

"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.