Raymond Carvers Cathedral Essay - 6977 Words

In quot;The Compartment,quot; one of Raymond Carvers bleakest stories, a man passes through the French countryside in a train, en route to a rendevous with a son he has not seen for many years. quot;Now and then,quot; the narrator says of the man, quot;Meyers saw a farmhouse and its outbuildings, everything surrounded by a wall. He thought this might be a good way to live-in an old house surrounded by a wallquot; (Cathedral 48). Due to a last minute change of heart, however, Meyers chooses to stay insulated in his quot;compartmentquot; and, remaining on the train, reneges on his promise to the boy, walling out everything external to his selfish world, paternal obligation included. Meyerss tendency toward insularity is not, of†¦show more content†¦As one might expect further, such interventions and influences are mobilized in the stories through the communal gestures of language--through the exchanging of tales and through communicative transactions, particularly, where separate identities blend and collaborate rather than collide. Thus even as quot;Carvers task,quot; as Paul Skenazy writes, is to depict the quot;tiny, damning confinements of the spirit,quot; in Cathedral it is also to go beyond depicting the suffocations and wilted spirits of characters in chains (78). Engaging in what he calls a kind of writerly quot;opening upquot; of his own, Carver draws out in various uplifting moments the momentary gratifications and near-joys characters experience when, however temporarily, the enclosing walls come down--when their self-preoccupations lift and they sense new freedom, a freedom they may or may not ever truly participate in at all (Interview 21). But since outright freedom is for many of Carvers lot as terrifying as total lack of mobility (think of Arnold Breit in quot;Are You a Doctor?quot; or Lloyd in quot;Carefulquot;), the freedoms Carvers newly-liberated characters experience manifest themselves ironically as forms of enclosure, ample and humane as those enclosures may be. Be they a comforting memory of ones old bedroom, or the warm, fragrantShow MoreRelated`` Cathedral `` By Raymond Carver992 Words   |  4 Pages â€Å"Cathedral† is a short story that was written by Raymond Carver in 1981. Raymond Carver is most well known for his short stories and is even an writer credited with reviving the then dying form of literature. A part of a collection of short stories, â€Å"Cathedral† was the last to be published and was included in 1982’s Best American Short Stories. â€Å"Cathedral is different from the other works of Carver due to the humanistic realism that is given to his characters, which had no t been seen before in hisRead MoreCathedral (by Raymond Carver)1131 Words   |  5 PagesCathedral: A Lesson for the Ages Raymond Carver s short story, Cathedral, portrays a story in which many in today s society can relate. We are introduced from the first sentence of the story to a man that seems to be perturbed and agitated. As readers, we are initially unsure to the reasoning s behind the man s discomfort. The man, who seems to be a direct portrayal of Raymond Carver himself, shows his ignorance by stereotyping a blind man by the name of Robert, who has come to stay withRead MoreThe Cathedral By Raymond Carver Essay937 Words   |  4 Pages â€Å"Cathedral† Born on May 25, 1938 in Clatskanie, Oregon, Raymond Carver was destined to be a writer. He was a son of a sawmill worker and grew up working hard majority of his life. He married year after he finished high school and had two children with his wife at the time. He raised and supported his children with normal working class jobs such as delivering, janitorial and gas station services. Carver discovered his interest in writing after taking a creative writing course in collegeRead MoreAnalysis Of Cathedral By Raymond Carver Essay830 Words   |  4 PagesMistakable Judgments An Analysis of â€Å"Cathedral† Raymond Carver wrote a long-lived short story name â€Å"Cathedral†. Where a divorced women remarried after a hard experience to a person who is struggling to accept his wife’s very long relationship with a blind man. Her new husband suspiciousness controls his emotions and draw his thoughts falsely. As her very old friendship was having an unfortunate event that his wife had passed away, he arranged with her a visit to their house, which concerned herRead MoreAnalysis Of Cathedral By Raymond Carver1541 Words   |  7 PagesA New Perspective Everyone at one point has judged a book by its cover. In the short story, â€Å"Cathedral†, Raymond Carver creates a narrator who bases off ideas and assumptions about blind people from movies. The narrator has never interacted with a blind person before the day where his wife invites her friend, who is named Robert, to stay. The narrator and Robert have never met, but the narrator has a strong dislike towards Robert before meeting. The narrator’s closed-mindedness and misconceptionsRead MoreEssay on Cathedral by Raymond Carver1290 Words   |  6 PagesThe story of Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, shows that you do not have to see someone or something in order to appreciate them for who or what they are. It is about a husband, the narrator, and his wife who live in a house. The wife, whose name they do not mention, has a very close friend who is blind. His name is Robert. Roberts wife dies, and comes to their house to spend a couple of days with the narrator and his wif e. The narrator, whose name they do not mention as well, is always on edge becauseRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 1097 Words   |  5 PagesSeptember 2015 Cathedral by Raymond Carver In this short story by Raymond Carver begins with a man whose wife invited a good friend over named Robert and is blind. Before Roberts Arrival, the wife’s husband, whose name is Bub, does not know what to make out of his wife’s good friend Robert coming over to their house. Carver utilizes a story of a blind man who changes Bub’s outlook in life. Through the narrators changing character, theme of loneliness and jealousy, and the cathedral being a symbolRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s The Cathedral 863 Words   |  4 Pages One of the Raymond Carver story where we can find a lot of religion symbols; it is â€Å"Cathedral.† The story develops an ironic situation in which a blind man teaches a sighted man to truly â€Å"see† for the first time. Near the end of the story, Carver has these two characters work together on a drawing of a cathedral, which serves as the symbolic heart of the story. The cathedral represents true sight, the ability to see beyond the surface to the true meaning that lies within. The narrator’s drawingRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral1696 Words   |  7 PagesIntroduction: Everyone has ghosts in their closets; something they are running from, or trying to bury alive. Cathedral, written by Raymond Carver, takes place in the early 1980’s. Originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1981. Carver slightly revised the story and re-released it in 1983. At a time when the blue collar working class lived paycheck to paycheck, working hard for newfound luxuries such as color television, this short story is humorous and eye-opening for the reader. For adultsRead MoreAnalysis Of Raymond Carver s Cathedral 1340 Words   |  6 PagesRaymond Carver’s characters were considered to be very much like him: â€Å"’on the edge: of poverty, alcoholic self-destruction, loneliness† (Mays 32). His short story â€Å"Cathedral† is about a young couple, who have a visitor coming to stay with them. This visitor, Robert, is the wife’s friend, and he is blind. The narrator, the husband, has never met someone who is blind, was bothered by that. To him, being blind meant constantly needing help from others. His depiction of blindness was what he has seen