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Looking Vs. Seeing In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

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Cathedral Analysis Looking vs. Seeing Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be blind? Some would think of being blind as a disability. Have you ever interacted with someone who is blind? How would you talk to him? In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator has trouble with connecting with Robert because he is blind. The narrator is unable to see a deeper level than the superficial. Robert ends up teaching the narrator that there is a difference between “looking” and “seeing” and that “seeing” is much more work, and gives much more information than just “looking”. The narrator is the character that is most affected by the encounter with Robert. He is not a good person nor a bad person, he goes to his 9-5 job, comes home sits …show more content…

As they draw the cathedral together, “I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldn’t stop”(Carver, 42). This transformation of simply drawing what a cathedral looks like, to imagining actually hanging the doors means that the narrator is seeing the cathedral for what it is, instead of its superficial features. He is beginning to create the cathedral instead of simply replicating the physical aspects. Robert tells him to put people in it saying “What’s a cathedral without people?” (Carver, 42) By adding the people who give the cathedral meaning, the narrator is discovering deeper value in the building, he is actually seeing the cathedral for all its value for the first time. The story ends with Robert telling the narrator to look at what he has created. The narrator has made something with meaning, and not just a simple drawing. He says, “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything” (Carver, 42). This comment from the narrator shows that he is starting to rethink his surroundings. He realizes that if he doesn’t associate meaning with the things in his life such as his wife, or his home, then there is no connection with them, no point to maintaining relationships or valuing his

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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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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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Sometimes in life, people will have to deal with other people that are judgmental and listen to stereo types when they know nothing about the person. In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, there are some examples of stereotyping. This story is about a woman who has a good friend of hers and he is blind. The blind man, whose wife had just recently died and was traveling to go visit his family, was stopping at the women’s house overnight. The blind man and the narrator’s wife knew each other.

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In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” written in 1983, the author points out that empathy and perspective are the only way to truly experience profound emotion. The narrator is struggling is sucked into his own comfort zone, he drowns his dissatisfaction on life, marriage, and job in alcohol. A man of limited awareness breaks through his limitations by socializing with a blind man. Despite Roberts physical limitations, he is the one who saved narrator from himself and helped him to find the ones vies of the world.

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The author use of the title “Cathedral” was misleading at first. “Cathedral” is about a husband who had an interesting experience with his wife’s blind friend. The narrator, also known as the husband, had difficulty understanding other people thoughts and personal feelings. The narrator knew how important the blind man is to his wife, yet he still makes careless jokes about him. “Maybe I could take him bowling” was a comment made by the narrator after finding out that the blind man was staying over his house.

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“His being blind bothered me” (Carver 1). In Raymond Carver’s short story Cathedral, Carver establishes an ignorant narrator, who is dependent on alcohol and fixated upon physical appearance; he juxtaposes the narrator to a blind man who sees with his heart rather than his eyes. Through indirect characterization, Carver contrasts the narcissistic narrator to the intuitive blind man while utilizing sight as a symbol of emotional understanding. He establishes the difference between looking and seeing to prove that sight is more than physical.

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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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Throughout the story the reader can affirm that the wife has a deep, strong relationship with the blind man. The wife and the blind man share an intimate and vulnerable moments together; one includes when she lets him touch her face so he can remember her. Similarly, the narrator gets to share an intimate moment with Robert that leads to an epiphany. The epiphany that the narrator experiences when drawing a cathedral refers to seeing life from Robert, the blind man’s, point of view and seeing the struggles as well as life experiences a blind man must encounter on a daily basis.

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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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Raymond Carver is said to be one the most influential American writers and poets in the 20th century, especially in his works of short stories. One of his most famous pieces is “Cathedral.” This well-known short story is the final piece in Carver’s collection Cathedral published in 1983. Carver includes much symbolism through the story’s plot, structure, point of view, tone, and character build. The depictions of each character’s experiences, the irony in the story, and hearing the narrator’s point of view in “Cathedral” work in harmony to support its themes that prejudice and ignorance as well as the nature of reality are present and change throughout the course of the story, and all lead to a strong character development by the close.

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In his contemporary short story, “Cathedral,” Raymond Carver tells the story of an unnamed narrator, his wife, and an old friend, a blind man named Robert. Robert has come to visit the narrator’s wife, who is quite excited to see this man whom she hasn’t seen in ten years, yet the same can’t be said of the narrator who is noticeably and vocally uncomfortable about his visit. The story is told through the narrator’s first person point of view, showcasing his thoughts and the events that take place when Robert comes to visit. Carver highlights the theme of having the ability to see, but not truly seeing, through his use of colloquial language, and creation of relatable characters. “Cathedral” begins with the narrator informing the audience

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