Raymond Carver Cathedral Raymond Carver Research Paper

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 world, where he liked the old sofa, but she insisted on buying a new one is clearly headed down the same path. (Carver NP) Robert's inclusion of the narrator in the epiphany which had initially kept the connection of his wife and Robert over so many years strong served a restorative role, that the reader then hopes the narrator will allow to pervade his and his wife's life together and save them from losing the dream of their love and life together. (Facknitz 287-296) Carver's careful use of narration, building the unlikable character of the narrator, the symbolism of the poem experience, which the narrator had initially rejected, correlating it to the shared drawing of the cathedral a topic the narrator has also rejected in the narration, builds the full experience of the couple. The sofa is also a strong symbol as the narrator begins but then rethinks his open rejection of the "new sofa" sharing only with the reader that the image of the old sofa is still stuck in his mind, as it was a part of the whole of his insular experience, separate from his wife's life. The attempt by his wife to change the insular surroundings is rejected by the narrator, as he revisits it in his mind, stopping short of expressing his resentment aloud to a stranger, but registering it nonetheless. (Carver NP) the whole of the work develops the idea that the narrator obviously needs to change and that his wife's pleas and attempt to engender this change have been spurned, repeatedly.Yet, this stranger, this "blind man" can build the artifice for such a change in just a few moments of time, with a pen and a "thick piece of paper," and a plea to close one's eyes to the expected and simply experience this moment of learning and personal intercommunication.

Clearly the thematic representation of opening up to the world to a new perspective, is developed by the narrator actually closing his eyes and experiencing the "cathedral" through the blind man's experience of it is an example of a resurrection. (Hathcock 31-39) Raymond Carver Uses a variety of elements to render a theme that provides the readers with a sense that the narrator is an unpleasant human being, in need of change. Subsequently through Carver's careful use of narration, symbols, characterizations, image and tone readers are able to understand how the narrator struggles to understand what people can see it they open themselves up to new experiences, and for just a moment experience such a reawakening himself.

Works Cited

Bullock, Chris J. "From Castle to Cathedral: The Architecture of Masculinity in Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" Journal of Men's Studies 2:4 (May 1994) 343-351.

Carver, Raymond Cathedral Retrieved December 1, 2008 http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/cinichol/GovSchool/Cathedral2.htm.

Facknitz, Mark a.R. "The Calm,' 'A Small, Good Thing,' and 'Cathedral': Raymond Carver and the Rediscovery of Human Worth." Studies in Short Fiction 23 (1986): 287-296.

Gelfant, Blanche H., and Lawrence Graver, eds. The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

Hathcock, Nelson. "The Possibility of Resurrection': Re-Vision in Carver's 'Feathers' and 'Cathedral.'" Studies in Short Fiction 28 (1991): 31-39.

Lounsberry, Barbara, et al., eds. The Tales We Tell: Perspectives on the Short Story. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.

Nesset, Kirk. "Insularity and Self-Enlargement in Raymond Carver's….....