Raymond Carver Cathedral Essay

In «Cathedral», Raymond Carver uses a particular narrative style to explore the intricate ways of human’s perception and interaction. This raises the question: How does Carver use the first-person narration to reveal both the obvious and hidden characterisation of its protagonists through their words and actions? The focus will be on the interactions, transformations and development of the protagonist throughout the story. In this essay, the literary portraits will be presented in a textual analysis by highlighting the linguistic elements, symbolic imagery, and sensory and visual details used by the author. Finally, I will explore which tropes contribute to the staging of the senses, particularly through the dichotomy of inclusion and exclusion.

Sight is one of the main themes of this short story. This story revolves around a blind man. Someone that cannot see me. There is this theme of light and dark related to the sight that shows a contrast between the wife’s reaction to meeting the man, with warmth and smiles “She was beaming” versus the original reaction of the narrator. At first the darkness could represent the blindness and the light, the fact that the narrator sees and focuses more on visual details, like cameras in movies “she wiped her hands with the dish towel” “She picked up a potato. I saw it hit the floor, then roll under the stove”. But here it can also be seen as the opposite. While the narrator is portrayed as someone who lacks knowledge and lives through his TV, the blind man is more open and wise, he keeps engaging in the conversation even when the narrator’s question “which side of the train did you sit on?” seems clumsy, the blind man answered right away “Right side”. He also takes an interest in what Robert loves, by talking about actors from movies like “The Irish actor, Barry Fitzgerald”. [.]. In Christianity, blindness is a symbol of gaining true sight but could also be seen as a spiritual awakening. One that can be seen in the narrator transformation during the intense experience of the cathedral drawing scene. The author uses the symbolic interaction of the Cathedral drawing scene to represent a shared understanding of Robert and the narrator, an understanding that goes beyond words. When the main character tries to describe cathedrals in an ekphrasis way (a verbal description of a visual work of art), he understands the barrier of his semantics. When using a visual way to verbalize “They reach way up”. Up and up. Toward the sky [.] They remind me of viaducts, [.] But maybe you don’t know viaducts, either?” he struggles. Then the author switched and transposed a sign to another