The opening of the story begins with a thought of the stay of a blind man, Robert. The narrator goes on to admit his discontent about the visit: “He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (314). In the story, it is evident that the narrator was ignorant to many facets of life. He creates a world in which he could place his thoughts, his feelings, and ultimately his innermost being.
Throughout the story to narrator puts great emphasis on how poor and unfortunate it is to be blind. It’s was difficult for the narrator understand how a blind man could reliable, show compassion and make connections with people better than he ever could. The narrator tries numerous times to understand how Robert, the blind man was able to entertain his wife and help her in her time of need, because he only saw was Roberts’ disability. He never called Robert’s by his name, he used “blind man” to identify him and stress to the readers that his blindness was all he saw, his defining character trait. As the story continues to unfold, the narrator comes to a realization that you don’t need eyes to see the world.
Portrayed as a powerful moment, Robert and the narrator converse back and forth as he draws the cathedral…”Never though anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub? Well, it’s a strange life, we all know that. Go on now. Keep it up (Carver 101). As the story closes, the narrator comes to terms with his blind visitor by closing his eyes and keeping them that way for a period of
Carver finishes with leaving the narrator with his eyes closed imagining the cathedral he has just drawn with Robert. The ending leaves the reader hanging and the writer may have left off in the middle of a thought or idea. This essay describes the view of the narrator and the meaning behind it , as well as the zero ending of this short story that is not explained. The story follows a first person view that is narratoring the plot . The narrator empashizes his own view on the blind men , Robert, that is visiting them.
YO Nightmare Literary analysis Essay # 1 October 12, 2007 Analysis on Cathedral All human beings have some type of stereotypical impression, either good or bad, about certain individuals with a specific feature or disability. In the story “Cathedral”, by Raymond Carver, the saying “Do not Judge a book by its cover” becomes a reality to the anonymous male narrator, upon the arrival of the blind man into his house. With the use of symbolism, point of view and irony, carver shows that the unnamed male narrator, who is referred to as ‘‘Bub’’ by the blind man, Robert, grows as a character and drops his conventional prejudice towards blind people. Using the first person point of view, Carver, lets us get a personal understanding of “The narrator” and the way he sees things through his eyes. We clearly see prejudice in the narrator’s character from the starting gate of the story.
A women who had betrayed her husband because of Steven’s visiting, but felt guilty to John and realized that John was not a man she had been thinking of therefore, she regret started to regret herself. Steven is known as a young nice man, who is talkative and enthusiastic man that affects Ann’s life style; even though when he and Ann had betrayed John,
Weir highlights this through costuming, for example, when Book wears Jacob’s (Rachel’s dead husband) clothes. The full shot of Book wearing the ill-fitting clothes, coupled with his uncomfortable facial expression, demonstrates his unsuccessful attempts at being completely accepted in the Amish community. His intruding presence in their community is symbolised by the act of his car knocking into the birdhouse, emphasising the disruption of harmony and peace. His stay with the Amish teacher Book that violence is not the key to solving problems, and competes with his rival Daniel for the affections of Rachel. However, his supreme ordeal is defeating the enemy, which he successfully accomplishes at the end, as shown by the close up shot the group of
In his sermon he did not include scripture. He preached about the plush carpet all over his house, the type of car he drives, the brand of clothing he had on, and how the birds disturbed him in the morning. My first thoughts were how a man of God can preach only about his blessings, neglect to preach the word and indicated how much his disapproved of the birds chirping in the morning. At that moment I felt as if he was putting on a production and not preaching the word. Needless to say that was my last time I attended that church.
English Composition 1003-10 25 September 2011 The Blind Leading the Blind After first reading Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” one could easily get the impression that the narrator is a closed-minded jerk. After reading the story a couple more times and really considering the position the narrator is put in, I began to realize he wasn’t very closed-minded at all. He was blinded by jealousy. Because society perpetuates the idea that men must be territorial in relationships, the narrator felt that he must do anything in his power to make sure his wife was not ok with a strange man coming to his home. The narrator’s wife observes, “You don’t have any friends.
I believe that the reason he alienated himself is to not get hurt, be in a conflict, go through change or have the pain of losing someone. In the novel he talks about losing his brother and I think that is what triggered him to stay in a “safe distance” from the people around him. Also, before his date with Sally he decided to take a walk throughout the Natural History Museum. He described how he liked how everything stayed the same. This shows how he does not know how to deal with conflict, confusion, and change.