Cathedral
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“Cathedral” Raymond Carver
Literature is often used as a tool to help open the reader’s eyes about the negative traits and behaviors of human nature. By doing this the author will help the reader to become more aware and conscience. We all know the common attributes of prejudice; this is a flaw of human nature and can affects the lives of those that are that are prejudice and their views of the world in a very profound way. Sometimes it takes a dramatic event, a revelation, to make us see the beauty in the world that surrounds us .In his short story “Cathedral” Raymond Carver skillfully portrays the unawareness of the reality around those who are closed minded and ignorant and gives his main character who has perfect vision the gift of sight from a blind man through his use of point of view, characterization and theme.
Writers usually tell us stories by establishing a position from which the storyteller conveys the plot. This is known as the point of view. One of the most interesting features of “Cathedral” is Carvers use of the narrative first person point of view. The story is told by the unnamed, middle-aged, white male narrator, and the point of view is limited to him. The reader finds out that there will be a blind mans upcoming visit, the narrators wifes previous life, and the course of the visit all through the eyes of the narrator. The narrator is not a very coherent man; he often speaks in not full sentences, we can see an example of this when tries to explain the cathedral to Robert, clearly our narrator is not good with words, hence there is a lot left in the narration open to the reader’s interpretation. Although the narrator controls what information the reader has, there are plenty of clues to the personality of the narrator that help us to understand him better. When carefully reading the story, the reader can recognize things about the narrator that even he does not realize. Through his narration the reader can understand the way he sees and understands everything around him, we assume some character traits, for example that his attitude is insecure, arrogant, disrespectful, insensitive, and not very articulate.
Characterization is used by authors to help us understand why things unfold they way they do in stories. There are three primary characters in “Cathedral”, the narrator, his wife, and the blind man Robert. The narrators wife’s we learn clearly a difficult past, an unsuccessful marriage, attempted suicide , and it is apparent that she is not currently in a very good relationship. However she still seems to remain sensitive. She has developed a close friendship with Robert, and has kept in touch with the blind man for many years. It is her friendship with Robert that “makes” the story. For her, it started out just as a job, and grew into a great friendship. She read to Robert and helped him with the household chores. She left working for him because her husband went to officer training school so they had to move. The blind man and the woman kept in touch through audio tapes throughout the years. She is kind, considerate, well-mannered and happy to have the visitor. Robert, the blind man, to me, is the hero of the story. He is a strong willed man who has not allowed his blindness affect the kind of life he lives. He has close relationships, was in a loving marriage, and is clearly an open-minded and easy going individual. He is also trustworthy which we can infer from the fact that the wife seems to open up to him completely. He realizes that his presence is awkward for the narrator and tried to make conversation with the narrator to help him feel more at ease. The main character in the story is experiencing loneliness, he is unhappy in his work, jealous of his wife and her relationship with others, he resents his wifes