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The Cathedral - Online Term Paper

The Cathedral


The narrator in Raymond Carver’s Cathedral is not a particularly sensitive man. I might describe him as self-centered, superficial and egotistical. And while his actions certainly speak to these points, it is his misunderstanding of the people and the relationships presented to him in this story which show most clearly his tragic flaw: while Robert is physically blind, it is the narrator that cannot clearly see the world around him.
In the eyes of the narrator, Robert’s blindness is his defining characteristic. The opening line of Cathedral reads, “This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night.” (Carver 1052) Clearly, the ...

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which stops him from seeing the blind man as an individual.
The narrator’s reaction to Robert’s individuality shows his stereotypical views. The narrator assumed Robert did not do certain things, just because he was blind. When he first saw Robert his reaction was simple: “This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say.” When Robert sat down on the couch, he thinks, “I…read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled…But this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one.” The narrator’s naivete leaves him amazed by Robert, who does things which the narrator would view as atypical of the blind. This reinforces the idea that the narrator is blind to the reality of the world.
The narrator’s blindness is certainly not limited to Robert – he no better ...

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to come into his wife’s life. This delusion is obvious, when the narrator relates surprise that his wife never mentions him in her conversation with Robert that night:
They talked of things that had happened to them – to them! – these past ten years. I waited in vain to hear my name on my
wife’s sweet lips: “And then my dear husband came into my life”—something like that. But I heard nothing of the sort.
This only reaffirms that once again, the narrator completely misreads the situations in the world around him.
Notwithstanding, the narrator’s emotional blindness can be seen most clearly in his inability to comprehend Robert and ...

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PAPER DETAILS
Added: 12/4/2008 04:40:17 PM
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1275
Pages: 5

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