Raymond Carver Cathedral Summary

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In 1984 the story “Cathedral” was written by Raymond Carver. Mr. Carver had written several different poems and stories previous to this one, but unlike some of his others, this one ends on a more optimistic note. In this story the narrator is very oblivious to his own blindness. He is not physically blind but he has placed many limitations on himself that prevented him from opening his eyes to other things. It helps to analyze a story when you want to better understand it. The story “Cathedral” it is narrated in first person. It is about an older blind man, Robert, who is traveling to visit the narrator and his wife. The narrator isn’t very pleased about Robert coming to visit. The wife met Robert ten years prior, she worked for him for a…show more content…
The wife fell asleep on the couch but the narrator and Robert stayed awake. They visited while the TV was running in the back-ground. The TV began to talk about cathedrals. The narrator asked Robert if he knew what a cathedral looked like, of course he said no. Robert asked him to describe one for him. So the narrator tried to do so, but he could tell he wasn’t painting a very good picture for Robert. Robert asked him to go find a piece of paper and a pen so he could draw one. Robert told him to press hard so he could feel the pin lines with his hands. He tells him to close his eyes while he’s drawing the picture. After he is done, Robert tells him to open his eyes, but instead he keeps them closed. With his eyes closed he says ‘It’s really something’ (135). For the first time in his life, he was truly seeing things and ironically it happens when his eyes are closed and a blind man was leading him. The cathedral was a symbol. It represented true sight, the ability to see beyond just the surface and see what really lies beneath. Just as a cathedral offers a place for religious people to come and worship and find peace, the narrator’s drawing of a cathedral opened a door for him into a deeper place in his own mind, where he can see beyond just the surface of
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    Cathedral by Raymond Carver is the story of an ordinary man living in the modern United States who narrates the visit of blind man who goes to his house to stay overnight (Carver 69). Throughout the narration, very little information is given on the time and place where the story is set and leads to a very vague perspective in term of the setting. Instead, the emphasis is put on the psychological transformations that the narrator (the protagonist) undergoes during the visit. Initially, the narrator

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