ipl-logo

Raymond Carver's Use Of Irony In Cathedral

1052 Words5 Pages

Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” is a short story that unfolds through the perspective of Bub. The story begins with the depiction of Bub’s narrow-mindedness and as the story progresses, it becomes clear that his perspective shifts after an encounter with his wife’s blind friend Robert. It’s through his encounter that he has an epiphany. His jealousy towards Robert and intoxication that debunk his preconceived notations and highlight the connection between him and Robert. Only, after his epiphany that he’s drawn out of his obliviousness and he gains insight. Bub’s wife, his smoking, and drinking are key elements in breaking apart his bias and as a result, he’s enlightened. Bub’s epiphany helps him realize how Robert mirrors his life. The first …show more content…

As shown when the narrator went to turn on the television and his wife felt he was vainly disrespectful towards Robert. The narrator’s wife believed that due to Robert’s blindness, he wouldn’t have a television set. She wanted Bub to have respect and take into consideration the possibility that Robert may not have a TV. Robert proved them wrong when he said, “My dear, I have two TVs. I have a color set and a black-and-white thing, an old relic” … “This is a color TV,” the blind man said. “Don’t ask me how, but I can tell” (pg. 8). Not only shocked Bub, but his wife, they couldn’t fathom because of Robert's …show more content…

Their bond formed throughout the short story and it helped pick apart Bub’s assumptions about blind people. Robert and Bub’s drinking, eating, and smoking it allowed them to relax and accept each other’s company. “...I’ll stay up with you bub. If that’s all right…We haven’t had a chance to talk. Know what I mean? I’m glad for the company” (pg. 8). That moment showed that Bub is comfortable around Robert, and it also indicates that he began to warm up to Robert. He no longer sees him as just the blind man, but a man. His change of heart resulted from the alcohol and cannabis consumed, which removed temporarily removed Bub’s blinders and allowed him to see

Show More
Related
564 Words | 3 Pages

When first reading the story the narrator comes across as someone with a not so pleasant attitude. The narrator's wife and an old friend or hers named Robert; who is blind, have been communicating with each other for the past ten years. It's pretty obvious that the narrator is jealous of Robert. This is part of why the narrator has issues with blind people. “My idea of blindness came from the movies.

Read More
387 Words | 2 Pages

We all know that satirical stories are written to attract readers; we, as readers, somehow relate to them as we compare and contrast them to our own lives, looking unto both sympathetic and unsympathetic characters, and questioning which are we most like. Raymond Carver, who is noted for his “minimalistic type of prose,” proves what we know of the typical satire. In his short story, “Cathedral,” we realize the difference between looking and seeing. The sympathetic character of the story is Robert, a blind man who sees the world not with sight but with insight. He meets a man whose vision is intact but fails to see the world at its best.

Read More
1268 Words | 6 Pages

The narrator finally understands how Robert can love a woman or even just eat dinner being blind, since looking is not as important as he once thought. The townspeople were also just as wrong about Miss. Emily. When Emily dies, the townspeople are let into

Read More
448 Words | 2 Pages

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

Read More
431 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More
910 Words | 4 Pages

Because of his narcissistic personality, the narrator views his wife as an object, while the blind man, Robert, treats her as a friend and a confidant. The narrator’s inability to feel emotion causes him to value his wife’s body more than her emotions, therefore, he becomes jealous when the blind

Read More
200 Words | 1 Pages

“Cathedral” has a major irony; the narrator who seems a little too ignorant towards blindness seems to have no clue about his own limitations in sight. The motif of blindness really stands out when we look at how the narrator can see through his eyes but he does not realize the limitations he is placed in due to that, and how these limitations prevent him from seeing greater things in life. Basically the story is about transcendence; which is an existence beyond the limitations of the physical things. What Robert has that the narrator lacks is the ability to see into the wonders of things, tenderness in humanity, and definitely a curiosity that makes him truly alive and also free from the limitations of the physical factors.

Read More
787 Words | 4 Pages

He longs for some sort of communication because he states, “Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep. My wife and I hardly ever went to bed at the same time,”(Carver 34). The man may have started smoking weed, along with his heavy drinking, as a way to cope with his longing for communication from his wife. It is Robert who eventually shows the husband some form of communication and helps him to overcome his conflict with openmindedness and self-awareness. After the wife falls asleep, Robert and the man share conversations about what was showing on the tv.

Read More
1522 Words | 7 Pages

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.

Read More
767 Words | 4 Pages

People have a habit of constructing boundaries and constantly conceiving new ways to divide themselves from one another. We can observe this not only in the obvious places––such as geographical separations––but also on a more personal level––such as within relationships. Although these boundaries are formed as a self-protection mechanism with the goal of separating oneself from harm, in reality they also separate oneself from potentially positive situations. Bub, the main character in Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral,” is a prime example of how self-imposed limits can be detrimental to oneself and their surroundings. “Cathedral” is also an effective demonstration of the potential within everyone to stretch and approach their limits.

Read More
1358 Words | 6 Pages

The story revolves around three characters, a husband who is also referred to as Bub, his wife, and a blind man, Robert. The story begins with the wife reminiscing back at the times that she shared with Robert. She continues to talk about how much she enjoyed spending time with him. She talks about how she has kept in touch with him and how she has even written about Robert before. Even though the narrator doesn’t directly state to his wife, he happens to be “irritated” (Facknitz) by the fact his wife tends to have a connection with Robert.

Read More
860 Words | 4 Pages

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

Read More
1063 Words | 5 Pages

Robert’s wife has recently died and he used to work for the narrator’s wife. Robert comes to visit the narrator’s home and the narrator is not happy about this because he believes blind people to be miserable and gloomy based solely on what he has absorbed from the movies. At the end of the first paragraph, he says, “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (1.1). Little to the narrator’s knowledge, his wife and Robert had been using audio tape to correspond over ten years, and have much past history with each other. The narrator’s wife makes sure he knows to make Robert comfortable, and if he doesn’t it shows that he does not love her.

Read More
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.

Read More
1054 Words | 5 Pages

Robert literally can’t see, but he does obtain vision only on a deeper level. The narrator isn’t too enamored with the idea of another man coming to his home. He is insensitive and makes some harsh comments that make Robert feel a little uncomfortable. Due to his callous and unsympathetic personality, the narrator is never able to connect with his wife while Robert is instantly able to. Robert comes to visit the narrator and his wife at their home for the first time.

Read More

More about Raymond Carver's Use Of Irony In Cathedral

Related Topics

Open Document