The Use Of Setting In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

The short story “Cathedral” is an intriguing piece of writing written by Raymond Carver. In this story, the author created a character, the narrator, as a person that lacked warmth or emotional involvement, even with his own wife. The blind man is portrayed as a human being with a love for life. He has a human connection towards the narrator’s wife whereby he fully understands her emotions and supports her needs. My essay will explore the use of setting in this short story. My thesis will focus on the use of location, time, and social conditions. Carver validates the theme of human connection and understanding using the three types of settings mentioned. The literary techniques captured in the short story are symbolism and setting. Stereotype is a symbol of ignorance and is demonstrated in the story when the narrator refers to the blind man as “someone
Carver shows us that the narrator is a closed-minded human being with a simple and boring personality. He is not open to other people’s beliefs as he’s an individualist. He is unreceptive to his wife’s pen-pal relationship with the blind man. He stereotypes Robert as he is physically blind, and he also makes racist remarks about Robert’s late wife Beulah. “That’s a name for a colored woman. Was his wife a Negro?” (3). The narrator is an unspiritual individual. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (2). The narrator had poor beliefs as he would believe that the blind man isn’t consider as a normal human being just because he was physically blind. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I can’t tell you what a cathedral looks lie. The truth is, cathedrals don’t mean anything special to me” (8). The social milieu conditions in the short story is extremely important because shows the importance the setting has on the theme of human connection and