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Raymond Carver's Short Story Analysis: Cathedral By Ernest Hemingway

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Raymond Carver's Short Story Analysis: Cathedral By Ernest Hemingway
“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
This minimalistic story is written by the famous author, Raymond Carver. Carver was born in 1938 in the small town of Clatskanie, Oregon, to an alcoholic father who worked at a sawmill and his mother who worked as a waitress. After graduating from high school, Carver and his family moved to California, where he did not continue his education until 1958, where he started taking writing classes with the writer John Gardner, who introduced him to the fascinating world of writing. Carver was a unique writer with a very distinct writing style and a truly minimalist and he is often compared to the writing of Ernest Hemingway. Carver liked to focus on the blue-collar and middle-class people facing dreary truths, disappointments, …show more content…
This occurs when the narrator closes his eyes and in coherence with Robert and draw a cathedral. During the drawing something happens, he has a revelation during the drawing, where he experience that with his eyes closed, he is able to see more than he has ever seen before. “His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.”8 This revelation happens despite the narrator’s dismissive and earlier prejudice of Robert. This dismissive side of him slowly disappears, when his wife falls asleep. They are forced to have a conversation and the narrator uses alcohol and marijuana to prepare and ease up for the conversation. “I asked him if he wanted another drink, and he said sure. Then I asked if he wanted to smoke some dope with me.”9 This is the narrator’s way of removing the awkwardness and enter a more secure and dreamy universe. When they begin to draw the cathedral, even though the narrator actually is able to see it, he is unable to describe the cathedral to Robert, “I’m Sorry. But it looks like that's the best I can do for you. I'm just no good at it."10 This adds to the fact that the narrator only is able to concentre on the obvious and is not able to “see” its deeper meaning. The act of drawing the cathedral with his eyes closed lets the narrator look inside himself just like Robert, …show more content…
True “seeing,” as Robert is an example of. It involves a lot more than just looking at the obvious in life, and that is what makes up the true message in this story. There is a clear difference between looking and seeing, and that is what Raymond has tried to
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