An Analysis of Cathedral Raymond Carver’s "Cathedral" appears to be a simple visit between a man’s wife and her long time friend Robert‚ but Carver is essentially creating a newly established friendship between Robert and Bub to show stereotypes and barriers can be broken. Carver’s portrayal of Bub as a simple‚ ignorant‚ and stereotypical man‚ who easily labels things as impotent or useless‚ is used to show how all people can build and create stereotypes around people we don’t know. Instead
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person has done or will do. In today’s society certain characteristics are viewed in a negative light due to the changing ways of everyday life and increasing deviation of traditional American views to ones of a more liberal nature. In “Cathedral” Raymond Carver writes of a man who is addicted to drugs and alcohol‚ which creates psychological distance from the narrator‚ his wife‚ and the blind man. This is caused by the narrators need to escape reality and enjoy a world that is not his own.
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CATHEDRAL by Raymond Carver Raymond Carver‚ the author of Cathedral was born in Oregon in 1938. He came from a poor family. At the age of 40 he was one of the most promising writers of his generation and was also near ruin in everyway from alcoholism. He quit drinking but lung cancer took over- taking his life at the age of 50. He wrote 3 collections of stories: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”‚“ Cathedral” and “Elephant”‚ poems and essays. He was considered a minimalist until Cathedral
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Abstract Raymond Carver‚ being a famous American short story writer in the 20th century‚ was often labeled as a minimalist writer. However‚ his “Cathedral” was nothing like his previous stories. With no extraneous words‚ Carver expressed his unique worldview and vision in “Cathedral”. This essay will examine the text from four different perspectives: sight and insight‚ names and downplay of individuality‚ dialogues between characters‚ and the growth of narrator‚ which are all related to
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I am deeply ambivalent about Raymond Carver. My beef with this particular dead guy has less to do with his fine stories than with his 1980s-era apotheosis into an academic demigod‚ his canonization as St. Ray of the MFA programs‚ the way his works and style became paradigms to be slavishly imitated by a generation (maybe two generations now) of American writing students‚ a process of sowing that came to barren fruition in the bland‚ flat‚ snowy fields of zero-degree Minimalist prose. All this has
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Ryan Collins ENG 102 Section N02 February 10‚ 2014 An Interpretation of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” tells the story in first person narration‚ of a man that at first when confronted with the notion of his wife’s blind friend Robert visiting them at their home‚ is hung up on the fact that he is blind and cannot really relate to that concept. The narrator’s wife became acquainted with Robert prior to her first marriage‚ which failed due to her then husband’s military
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The “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story about the narrator‚ his wife and his wife’s friend Robert‚ who is a blind man that she used to work for as a reader about ten years ago. They were able to keep in touch by mailing tapes to each other. Robert’ wife just died so he was coming for dinner and was going to spend the night at their house after visiting some relatives. The narrator‚ who lack social skills‚ was not so thrilled about entertaining a blind man and was a little jealous about his
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Douglas Hunter Professor Glenn English 102 February 11‚ 2014 Response Paper As I begin to read “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver‚ I cannot comprehend what is going on. The story starts off with a husband named Robert telling the reader about “this” (par.1.) blind man who has been long term friends with his wife and will be coming to visit due to the tragic death of the blind man’s wife. Through the way that this man speaks of the blind person gives the appearance that the husband is not very fond
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The narrator of the story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver has never met someone who was blind until Robert came to visit. Robert has been a friend of the narrator ’s wife for the past ten years and is spending the night because he has not seen her for such a long time‚ but this bothers the narrator. He does not regard a blind man as a normal person with whom he can relate with‚ and is extremely uncomfortable with the idea of having to socialize with one for an entire evening. The narrator is stereotypical
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Blindness can manifest itself in many ways. Arguably the most detrimental form of this condition may be the figurative blindness of ones own situations and ignorance towards the feelings of others. In Raymond Carver ’s short story "Cathedral‚" the narrator ’s emotional and psychological blindness is immediately apparent. The many issues faced by the narrator as well as the turn-around experienced at the culmination of the tale are the main ideas for the theme of this story; and these ideas aid the
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