Analysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral - 1006 Words

Gabrielle Sobolewski English 200 Professor Ruth Jennison 11/12/15 The short story â€Å"Cathedral† by Raymond Carver is told from the perspective of a first-person narrator. Throughout the story, the narrator is self-absorbed in his own thoughts and emotions and fails in his willingness to overlook personal insecurities in order to accommodate others’ discomfort, i.e. predominantly his wife and the blind man. In general, the story lacks figurative language and is told in short, direct sentences. This basic structure leaves a lot for the reader to interpret on his or her own. I focused on two paragraphs within Raymond Carver’s short story. The first section is the fifth paragraph in the story beginning with â€Å"But instead of dying...† and concluding with â€Å"all I wanted to.† To make it less complicated throughout my paper, I will refer to this segment as ‘Section 1.’ The second section I used is the seventh paragraph in the short story, which begins with â€Å"Beulah had gone to work...† a nd ends with â€Å"Pathetic.† I will refer to this segment as ‘Section 2.’ Both of these paragraphs hold significance both in themselves alone as well as when applied together. In Section 1, the protagonist provides a subjective, narrow report of his wife’s past. Throughout his storytelling, the husband seems to lack a certain interest and empathy towards his wife’s past events. For example, when recounting his wife’s suicide attempt, the only thing he mentions is that â€Å"instead ofShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral1696 Words   |  7 Pagesfrom, or trying to bury alive. Cathedral, written by Raymond Carver, takes place in the early 1980’s. Originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1981. Carver slightly revised the story and re-released it in 1983. At a time when the blue collar working class lived paycheck to paycheck, working hard for newfound luxuries such as color television, this short story is humo rous and eye-opening for the reader. For adults ranging from thirty to forty years old, the 1980’s were possibly a ghostly, hauntingRead MoreCharacter Analysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 1426 Words   |  6 PagesCharacter Analysis in Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral†: The Narrator Literature has the potential to act as a mirror by presenting people’s lived experiences, expectations, and perceptions through characters. Such is what can be deciphered through the analysis of different characters in Raymond Carver’s story â€Å"Cathedral.† This paper focuses on the narrator of the story portrayed by the author as blind, which is used metaphorically not to imply physical blindness, but the inability to have reasonedRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 970 Words   |  4 PagesIn Raymond Carver’s short story, â€Å"Cathedral†, we meet the character who is never named, and who is known as the narrator to us. Although the narrator’s character changed towards the end, and we don’t really learn much after the change of his personality, it is still a gradual change that took place. The narrator’s attitude is very important in the story because it revolves around him and the way he views things. This short story is about a man who is married to a woman, and this woman has been friendsRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s The Cathedral 863 Words   |  4 Pages One of the Raymond Carver story where we can find a lot of religion symbols; it is â€Å"Cathedral.† The story develops an ironic situation in which a blind man teaches a sighted man to truly â€Å"see† for the first time. Near the end of the story, Carver has these two characters work together on a drawing of a cathedral, which serves as the symbolic heart of the story. The cathedral represents true sight, the ability to see beyond the surface to the true meaning that lies within. The narrator’s drawingRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 1097 Words   |  5 PagesSeptember 2015 Cathedral by Raymond Carver In this short story by Raymond Carver begins with a man whose wife invited a good friend over named Robert and is blind. Before Roberts Arrival, the wife’s husband, whose name is Bub, does not know what to make out of his wife’s good friend Robert coming over to their house. Carver utilizes a story of a blind man who changes Bub’s outlook in life. Through the narrators changing character, theme of loneliness and jealousy, and the cathedral being a symbolRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 943 Words   |  4 PagesIn Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral†, the short story is told by a character within the story. The first-person point of view gives us a transparent visual of an important time in the narrators’ life. The narrator, who is â€Å"un-named† in the beginning of the story, uses blunt, flawless and a particular choice of words. This gives us as the reader a deeper connection with the narrator. The narrator begins this story by taking us through the changes he go through with the uneasy feeling of having a blind-manRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral2364 Words   |  10 Pagesmost. The same could be said about people who are limited by one or more of their six senses and are judged by the majority of the population who are not limited and make preconceived notions about these limitations which can bind them. Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral† explores many literary devices that reveal the pre conceived perception towards people with physical limitations without understanding the individual first, which is still a problem today. The protagonist, the narrator is closed mindedRead MoreAn Analysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral1794 Words   |  8 Pages A Cynics Enlightenment Raymond Carver’s short-story Cathedral is outwardly about a pessimistic man, whose wife’s blind visitor named Robert changes the narrators predisposing perception of the world and awakes a new view on life in the process. But inwardly, the story is about the desperate need for connection between these three characters, which isn’t feasible do to the emotional-detachment by the narrator. In the beginning, the narrator is hindered by his prejudices which doesn t allow himRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral1524 Words   |  7 PagesAs if someone has unlocked his prison cell to liberate him of his stereotypical point of view. The protagonist of Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral† was an individual whose stagnant mind has blind him from truly seeing the aspects and characteristics of people around him. Before meeting his wife’s blind friend whose name is Robert, the protagonist perceives reality with a stereotypical mind-set shaped by m isleading information from movies. Hence, he make judgement about other people without ever settingRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 1340 Words   |  6 PagesRaymond Carver’s characters were considered to be very much like him: â€Å"’on the edge: of poverty, alcoholic self-destruction, loneliness† (Mays 32). His short story â€Å"Cathedral† is about a young couple, who have a visitor coming to stay with them. This visitor, Robert, is the wife’s friend, and he is blind. The narrator, the husband, has never met someone who is blind, was bothered by that. To him, being blind meant constantly needing help from others. His depiction of blindness was what he has seen