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All of these problems seem to be unimportant for the man and this influences the narrator in acknowledging his personal misery. The narrator accepts that he is doomed to being miserable because he is unable to appreciate life and the privileges that nature provided him with (Saltzman 154).
The narrator changes his thinking several times in the evening when Robert comes to visit. He initially believes that Robert is a typical blind man that one can see in motion pictures, he later comes to be frustrated with the man's open nature, and he eventually ends up acknowledging that this is an impressive person. The narrator's "experience with Robert, and attempting to experience the world from Robert's perspective, opens up a whole new way of looking at the world" (Cathedral: Shmoop Literature Guide 7). However, what is really intriguing about Carver's story is that he shows the narrator as being a changed man as he is under the influence of alcohol and marijuana. Although it is difficult to believe whether or not this changes his understanding of episodes that he experiences, it is nonetheless interesting to consider that Carver wanted his readers to understand that these two substances make it possible for people to see the bigger picture. Instead, he concentrates all of his energy in being jealous and in generally expressing reluctance to take advantage of life's beauty. Robert virtually opens his eyes and makes it possible for him to accept that he has everything that the blind man has not. In spite of this, the narrator is still unable to appreciate life similar to how Robert does. It is actually sad that it takes a blind man who is recently widowed to enable the narrator to change his attitude regarding life.
The narrator's wife has a tumultuous background and the fact that she tried to commit suicide as a result of being unhappy in her last
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Works cited:
Campbell, Ewing, "Raymond Carver:
a study of the short fiction," (Twayne, 1992)
Hunt, Douglas, "The Riverside Anthology of Literature," (CENGAGE Learning, 11.09.1997)
Runyon, Randoplh Paul, "Reading Raymond Carver," (Syracuse University Press, 01.01.1994)
Saltzman, Arthur Michael, "Understanding Raymond Carver," (University of South Carolina Press, 1988)
Sklenicka, Carol, "Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life," (Simon and Schuster, 24.11.2009)
"Cathedral: Shmoop Literature Guide," (Shmoop University Inc., 11.07.2010)
Works cited:
Campbell, Ewing, "Raymond Carver:
a study of the short fiction," (Twayne, 1992)
Hunt, Douglas, "The Riverside Anthology of Literature," (CENGAGE Learning, 11.09.1997)
Runyon, Randoplh Paul, "Reading Raymond Carver," (Syracuse University Press, 01.01.1994)
Raymond Carver's short story "Cathedral" explores a number of different social and psychological issues including stereotyping and prejudice. When the blind male friend of the narrator's wife enters their home, issues related to self-esteem, sexuality, and racism also arise. The blind man, Robert, helps the narrator to "see," serving a symbolic function of enlightenment. Cannabis provides the means by which the two men bond on an emotional and intellectual level,
Carver, "Cathedral" Despite its prominent placement in the title of the story, the cathedral in Raymond Carver's short story "Cathedral" takes quite a while to make its appearance. The story instead is about a marriage -- a husband and wife have a guest to dinner. Carver's story is narrated in the first person, from the perspective of the husband, so to some extent the symbolism of the story is constructed with
Raymond Carver, "Cathedral" Raymond Carver's short story "Cathedral" is narrated in the first person by the unnamed protagonist, and tells a deceptively simple story: the narrator's wife (also unnamed) has invited her former employer Robert, an older blind man recently widowed, to come for dinner and stay the night. The husband is resistant to the social occasion, but goes through with it -- although his narration makes us privy to his
Cathedral Raymond Carver In his short story, Cathedral, author Raymond Carver argues that community and connection are an important component of life. The narrator begins the story as an isolated man, with few friends and little connection to the outside world. His insularity is upset by the arrival of his wife's friend, a blind man. Initially highly resistant to the blind man's intrusion into his world, the narrator gradually warms to
Ethos is emphasized by presenting Aylmer as a successful scientist who abandoned his career in order to stay with his wife. Pathos emerges at the time when Aylmer is unable to sleep at night thinking that his wife is almost perfect and that he could actually make her perfect by putting his experience to use. Logos takes place when Aylmer performs a series of successful tests and actually goes as
The beginning of the end being her attempted suicide, due to the fact that she felt disconnected from him, her first husband, and the world, as he was in the military and they had constantly moved away from human connections she had made. (Carver NP) Her second marriage, to the insular narrator, going to bed at different times, and he sitting up watching late night television in his insular