Raymond Carver's Cathedral: narrative analysis and themes

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 emotional state well. 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 through mail since it seem this is the only person who understands her, the narrator indicates that "They made tapes and mailed them back and forth" (Carver 356) and several other incidences, indicating the centrality of the audio tapes in the story. The husband is depicted as one who can only look, but Robert, despite being blind can see and have a clear vision of the wife to Bub

This ability to see rather than just look is again shown at the end of the story when Robert asks Bub to describe a cathedral. Bub strives to describe the cathedral to no positive concrete answer that he could give Robert, yet he had seen a cathedral on TV and he actually was the one who began the cathedral conversation. It is until the blind Robert holds his hands and helps him draw a cathedral that he can clearly see a cathedral and indeed at the end he gets lost into tranquility like no other there before. A state the even himself he cannot clearly describe and indicates that "My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything. "It's really something," I said" (Carver 366)