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Shannon
Raymond Carver's "Cathedral"
This is a short story that is told majorly from the eyes of a character referred to here as 'Bub' who is a husband to a woman who had a blind friend, Robert who comes to visit and the visit turns out to be a self search time for Bub and great revelation period for him.
The story employs strong use of symbolism as well as motifs to present the themes and the change of state of the mind of Bub as well as the mental disposition of Bub's wife. There is also exposition of the significance of some styles to the development of themes as well as the flow of the story.
The predominating theme of the story is self-reflection/search and sight verses vision. It is apparent that even though the Bub lives with the wife, he does not understand her needs and...
Robert, who is blind and despised by Bub from the onset through the negative comments and descriptions, understands Bub's wife better than Bub. Indeed Bub was amazed at the level of conversations and the interactions that his wife and Robert had in total lack of understanding, he says "She was still wearing a smile. Just amazing. She went around to the other side of the car to where the blind man was already starting to get out…. Too much, I say…. My wife took his arm, shut the car door, and, talking all the way, moved him down the drive and then up the steps to the front porch" (Carver 356). The narrator was amazed at the level of interaction between the two, a thing that did not exist between him and the wife.
The wife exchange innumerable audio tapes with the blind man…
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
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
Robert lost his wife, he is blind, and he is forced to interact with a person that the narrator believes he feels attracted to. 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
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,
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
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