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Ignorance Depicted In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

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Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”, is a short story told in the first person about a man meeting his wife’s blind friend. Aside from a few spare moments in which the narrator discusses what he knows of the pasts of his wife and her friend, Robert, this short story focuses mostly on the events of their meeting. In the grand scheme of things, this meeting between three regular people on some random day is ultimately unimportant, but to the people in question, especially the narrator, this meeting is incredibly significant. In the way his character develops over the course of as few as ten mundane pages, this story shows how ignorance isolates, and that making an effort to shed that ignorance can create meaningful connections with others. As early …show more content…

During their channel surfing, Roberts tells the narrator that he’s all right with watching whatever because, “...I’m always learning something. Learning never ends. It won’t hurt me to learn something tonight.” This line represents the entirety of their time together, Robert learning as he always does, and the narrator following his lead, getting to know and learn about Robert, who he was so uncertain about, as he does the same for him. As they learn about one another, they’re also learning about other things from the TV, consolidating what little miscellaneous knowledge they have about cathedrals and other things related to them (285). The difference between the two of them guessing about cathedrals and the narrator making assumptions about blind people is that the activity is bringing them together instead of just being used to other someone else. In seeking knowledge about something they know little about, they are working together and forming the beginnings of a connection between them. When the narrator can’t adequately describe a cathedral to Robert, the same man he was criticizing not long before, he’s earnestly, truly apologetic; at this point, we can assume that he cares what Robert thinks of him, or else he wouldn’t be so hard on himself (286). This is also why he agrees to draw a cathedral with Robert, hand over hand, and shut his eyes then lie about having opened them when he really hadn’t. By this point, at the end of the story, the narrator has experienced some kind of change to himself as a person, considering Robert to possibly be something along the lines of a friend, at least enough to want to put himself in his shoes for a little

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The unnamed narrator does not see Robert, the blind man, as a person, but as someone different. The grandmother, on the other hand, believes in her appearance and belief that is better than other people. After the challenges they both face, they end up finding enlightenment. In “Cathedral,” the narrator was not certain on how to describe the Cathedral to Robert. The narrator resorts to drawing and with a pen in his hand, he had realized that Robert “closed his hand over my hand” and asks the narrator to “close your eyes” as they drew the Cathedral (75-76).

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In the story of "Cathedral" the narrator is not happy that the blind man is visiting his home and has listened to rumors and unofficial sources to form a conclusion about the blind man before he even meets him. He feels both sorry for the blind man because of the fact that he is blind and feels like the blind man is limited to learning and truly experiencing life as a whole. He learns afterwards that him and the man get along quite well and even become friends because he was not like what he expected a blind person to be at all. This theory of having heard one story and believing it is true has plagued many of our minds and I think we should be more open minded when we form opinions on something or someone . Throughout this paper I would like

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That is why, when the story progresses and they watch the program regarding the cathedrals, his reaction is important. As the night winds down, and the wife falls asleep, the two men are left with each others’ company. When Robert apologizes for monopolizing the evening with chatter between him and the wife, the narrator responds, “‘that’s all right,’ I said. Then I said, ‘I’m glad

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He realizes how smart Robert is, and he keeps being shocked as the night goes on. While listening to a show about Cathedrals, Robert asks the narrator to describe him a Cathedral. The narrator tries his hardest, but can not do it. To combat this, Robert takes the narrator's hand and has him close his eyes and together they draw the church just from memory. After drawing the Cathedrals, the narrator describes the picture as, “ It’s really something” (103).He learns how seeing is not everything in life, and how wrong he was with his assumptions about Robert.

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On the creation of the drawings of the cathedral, two of the men don’t relay know much about it but share their knowledge of cathedrals. I also like to think that the blind man is very religious as stated in the story. The blind man being religious helps the narrator have a better understanding of the cathedral. The narrator draws and draws, getting wrapped up into what he is doing. The cathedral symbolizes an opportunity to put somebody else's needs ahead of his own and think about life from a different perspective or point of view .

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From the beginning of the novel the narrator shows ignorance and prejudice towards Robert, he is fighting with his own of jealousy and insecurity. Being unhappy with his own life, the narrator sees Robert as a possible threat to his usual evening with pot and TV, without realizing that in order to be satisfied he should step out of his habitual

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From that moment, the narrator show his true side to me. It shows that he doesn’t not care about his wife feeling toward the blind man. After carefully reading “cathedral”, the narrator is jealous of the blind man relationship with his

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"Cathedrals" by Raymond Carver is a short story that explores the themes of loneliness, isolation, and the search for meaning in life. The story is told from the perspective of a narrator who is traveling with his wife to visit a friend and the cathedral in a foreign country. Through the description of the cathedral, Carver creates a metaphor for the narrator's own internal struggles and his journey towards finding personal fulfillment. The thesis of this essay is that the cathedral in "Cathedrals" serves as a symbol of the narrator's inner turmoil and represents his quest for meaning and purpose in life.

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Even those of us with sight can be blind; and although it may not be physical, the blindness that is cognitive can be damaging to ourselves and our relationships with those around us. Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” portrays a perfect example of this. In this story, Raymond Carver uses point of view to help emphasize the narrator’s initial bias for those who are visually impaired and to better convey how his (the narrator’s) negative opinions are altered throughout the story. “Cathedral” is a short story about a blind man who goes to visit an old friend after the death of his wife. The story is told from the perspective of said friend’s husband, who has significant ‘cognitive blindness.’

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After a small introduction when the two characters first meet, the narrator recognizes that he “didn’t know what else to say” (Carver, 4), signifying his inability in connecting with Robert. A reason behind the trouble in connecting is discussed in “Literary Analysis of Cathedral” by Niwar A. Obaid, where he writes “The narrator’s apparently judgmental and doubtful tone… [set] a difficult attitude once the blind man and the narrator actually meet”. Obaid lists the narrator’s tone as one of the primary reasons why the narrator is reluctant to get to know Robert better. Since the narrator’s tone is caused by his prejudices, as previously shown, one can infer from Obaid’s writing that the real reason behind the narrator’s reluctance to form a relationship is his prejudice against the blind. Later in the story, Carver juxtaposes Robert’s readiness to learn more about the narrator to the narrator’s initial refusal to develop a relationship to Robert.

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In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator struggles with an internal conflict that involves him never being able to be in a vulnerable or sensitive state, especially when he is with his wife. The narrator creates suspense by having the reader wait until the end to realize what the blind man was referring to when he states, “From all you’ve said about him, I can only conclude—” (Carver 35). The reader can observe that the blind man was explaining that the husband was missing out on all aspects of life and the little things the world has to offer. The husband was so closed-minded, that he was missing out on having a deeper connection with his wife.

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Robert asks about the narrator’s religion which brings them to the topic of Cathedrals. Since Robert is blind he doesn’t know exactly what a Cathedral is and only can picture a normal building and what he thinks it might be like. As they continue to talk, Robert asks for some paper and a pen. Robert takes Bub’s hand and tells him to draw a Cathedral. Robert continues to cheer Bub on and continue drawing.

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The narrator begins to change as Robert taught him to see beyond the surface of looking. The narrator feels enlightened and opens up to a new world of vision and imagination. This brief experience has a long lasting effect on the narrator. Being able to shut out everything around us allows an individual the ability to become focused on their relationships, intrapersonal well-being, and

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In my understanding of the story “Cathedral” by the author, Raymond Carver, in the beginning, the protagonist is not keen on the idea of his wife's recently widowed Blind friend, Robert staying the night at their home. The narrator seems to have a negative preconception about blind people, believing that they cannot live an ordinary life because they do not physically see the world as he does. Throughout the story, I think there were clues about how the blind man can see, through the use of his other senses, for example, the way that the blind man could see the narrator's wife was by touching her face, tracing her facial features with his fingers. At dinner, the blind man's sense of smell and touch guided him to eat and drink like everyone

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528 Words | 3 Pages

He takes note of the simple things, like the awkward silence at dinner, where “we ate everything there was to eat on the table,” (Carver 45), and how they “got up from the table and left the dirty plates,” (Carver 45). Nothing too exciting happens, aside the narrator, when he “asked if he wanted to smoke some dope with me,” (Carver 55). Carver creates a very relatable story that mainly showcases ordinary people doing ordinary things. Although seeming to be anticlimactic for the majority of the story, these dull moments lead to a very important event. Robert and the narrator sit on the couch after the wife has fallen asleep, watching TV, when a documentary about cathedrals comes on.

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