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Raymond Carver The Cathedral Analysis

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The Cathedral by Raymond Carver is the story of a man, the narrator, who meet a blind person named Robert for the first time. He does not want to meet Robert, but because Robert is an old friend of his wife and an important person to her, he has no choice. During Robert’s visit, the husband is so uncomfortable and feeling jealous about his wife friendship with Robert. We can feel his jealousy, while the Robert and the narrator’s wife having conversations in the beginning of the story, “And then my dear husband came into my life”—“something like that. But I heard nothing of the sort. More talk of Robert.” As the story processing, he keeps mentioning Robert “the blind guy” which is very insulting and make the reader feel hate him. Also, he does …show more content…

This moment is a breakthrough for the narrator, he said “It’s really something.” From that moment he starts to see Robert as a human being and not just a blind man. By drawing a Cathedral, the narrator opens up himself for the first time to connect with someone else. Cathedral is a place for people to feel more closer to god and feel more connected the great power. In this story, drawing the cathedral has the same results for the narrator, and while he drawing a cathedral, he feels he is experiencing something new and meaningful in his life, “It was like nothing else in my life up to now.” It was a new feeling that none of his past experiences had given him before. Not drinking, not smoking drugs and not even his marriage. He was feeling he is inside of the cathedral and was feeling amazed by the great and the powers that the cathedral has. Cathedrals are the masterpieces buildings. Their huge height and beautiful artistic interiors and exteriors always inspired the visitors. Also, the narrator got inspired, he was feeling he is inside of the cathedral, while he was just drawing it at his own house. This is exactly the way that Robert understands the meanings of life. By drawing the cathedral the narrator has learned how to connect with Robert and at the same time he feels he connected to something greater and more interesting in his

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In the opening sentence of “Cathedral”, the narrator identifies Robert as “this blind man” as opposed to the various other labels he could heap upon him (Carver 514). The narrator also propagates the idea that “the blind move slowly and never laugh”, an illogical stereotype. This is not dissimilar to Jesus’s discriminatory treatment at the hands of the Romans as he conceptualized Christianity and spread his message to the people. Robert and the narrator have a Christian communion experience of sorts that

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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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With this, readers could sense that the narrator is jealous, grouchy, and angry that Robert’s presence affects the narrator’s wife because of the connection between both the wife and Robert. The author prepares readers for the enlightenment when Robert came for a visit and that is how cathedral came about. The narrator explains, “The TV showed this one cathedral” (110). In this scene, the narrator and Robert bonded about the appearance of the cathedral. Instantly, the narrator says to Robert, “Do you have any idea what a cathedral is?

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The narrator then proceeds to show Robert what a cathedral looks like by taking his hand and drawing a cathedral on “a shopping bag with onion skins in the the bottom of the bag.” (Carver 110) . Through this bricolage, the narrator closes his eyes and has an epiphany, for in this moment where his eyes are closed, hands intertwined, he truly sees, and “ ‘It’s really something,” (Carver 135). It’s the minimalistic approach that prefaces this big event that really showcases the theme. Carver’s use of colloquial language, in creation of an increasingly relatable scene allows for the reader to empathize with the narrator, allowing for a much stronger impact when the epiphany occurs and the story’s theme has been

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