Cathedral

by Raymond Carver

Paperback, 1989

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Vintage (1989), Paperback, 240 pages

Description

Raymond Carver's third collection of stories, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, including the canonical titular story about blindness and learning to enter the very different world of another. These twelve stories mark a turning point in Carver's work and "overflow with the danger, excitement, mystery and possibility of life. . . . Carver is a writer of astonishing compassion and honesty. . . . his eye set only on describing and revealing the world as he sees it. His eye is so clear, it almost breaks your heart" (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World).

Media reviews

School

The Cathedral is a story of how a man, known as the narrator, overcomes his predisposition towards a culture that is unknown to him. From the beginning, the narrator does not like Robert, and he really has no reason for it. He has his stereotypes that he sticks to in the beginning, until Robert

starts to prove many of them false. It is apparent that the narrator is very big on appearance, and this is shown through his fascination that a blind man had a beard. Later in the story, the narrator also points out that Robert did not wear sunglasses or use a cane. The narrator thought about how pitiful Roberts wife was, and how awful their relationship must have been because she would never receive a compliment based on her looks by her loved one. This shows what type of a husband he is, and what he values in his marriage. The narrator doesn't seem to have many friends, and his wife even points this out, and he seems to drink and smoke a lot. Although he can see, in comparison, he seems like the blind one. Although Robert is physically blind, he is a real jack of trades. He hasn't let his blindness get in the way of his happiness and it just goes to show that you can be blind, and still truly see. The narrator begins to understand this at the end of the story when he draws the cathedral with Robert and begins to bridge the gap between himself and true understanding.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member koconnell614

In Raymond Carver’s short story Cathedral, there are a many different aspects that allow the reader to understand the characters and how they change. In short a blind man comes to visit a couple who is an old friend of the wife. This is significant because the man or narrator in the story is very

prejudiced of blind people and doesn’t accept him very well. He has preconceptions of how they act and these are all false. An example of this is the fact that the man doesn’t truly understand what it means to see and understand. The narrator explains to the blind man about a carnival and does it well but when it comes to a cathedral he believes that he cannot describe what it is. It is only after drawing the cathedral with the blind man’s hand on top of his does he begins to understand the difference between being able to see and fully understanding what a cathedral means. Also another interesting symbol is the fact that the narrator is only able to open his mind up to the blind man and understand after smoking weed. Before being intoxicated, the narrator believes he is better and sees the man as a lower being almost, but through the weed and opening his mind and brain up does he understand that they are both equals. Another motif that goes throughout the novel is the idea of drinking. Before every action that occurs, one person is having a drink that allows for a new meaning to pop up or occur. The alcohol is important action because it emphasizes the idea that everything is open to change, rather than at the beginning of the story where the narrator is uptight. In the end, this story is beautiful because it shows a change that occurs between two people and the acceptance that occurs through mutual actions.

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LibraryThing member Laurenwuvsu01

Cathedral elucidates the continuous isolation that evolves within present day society. Despite the influx of new technologies flooding the markets to enable better communication across the world, or even within a small community, present day society still manages to remain isolated. The narrator in

Raymond Carvers, Cathedral, displays qualities of jealousy, prejudice, and insecurity, when his narrow outlook on life gets threatened to be expanded. Initially the narrator makes cryptic remarks in response to his wife’s blind friend, and even comments on Roberts relationship with his wife, “And then I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led…A woman whose husband could never see the expression on her face, being it misery or something better” (275). Despite the narrators pristine eyesight, he, himself cannot see the misery within his own life. Therefore the description the narrator provides about the blindman’s relationship reflects on the misery that evades his own failing relationship. The narrator and his wife exchange hostile words and seem to live around eachother as opposed to with eachother. However when the narrator and Robert being to converse without the presence of his wife, the narrator begins to perceive life as a scope of realism. Although Robert did not behold the typical features most human beings poses, happiness is not determined by a specific meter of what each person is capable of. The narrator learns that happiness can be found through seeing what others cannot. Even though the narrator possessed all of the tools to help him successfully communicate with the rest of he world (symbolic of growing technology), he still remained isolated (marital problems), because he couldn’t make meaning of his own life.

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LibraryThing member EricKibler

This is the collection where Carver shakes off the label of "minimalist".

His previous editor, Gordon Lish, was known for paring Carver's stories down to the bone. But in this collection, free from Lish's pencil, he is able to be more expansive. The stories still concern average shmoes living clumsy

lives, but now Carver gives himself the space for more incident. More emotional nuance. Not only that, but he's funnier, and he was fairly funny to begin with.

I read a volume of his poems recently. Like these stories, those poems were written in the eighties, during Carver's sobriety. Whereas poetry is usually about economy of language, finding that perfect word or phrase, Carver's poems were like listening to a friend who's had a few drinks and is telling you a story. If his audience is laughing, he's not afraid to lay it on. Reiterate certain comic points. Be a little redundant. Rant a bit. Play to the crowd. These stories have a bit of that same flavor.

The best example is of this is in the title story. The protagonist is a husband who's annoyed that his wife has invited an old friend, a blind man, over to spend the night. The character initially feels uncomfortable about the man's blindness, and expresses this to the reader by sarcastically riffing on how put out he feels, and how alien and creepy the man's blindness seems to him. But this is only the setup. The payoff is truly remarkable, emotional, and inspiring. I won't give it away.

Carver's early work was great, but lay in the shadow of his alcoholism, and for that reason was somewhat morbid. The later Carver seems to be poking fun at the morbidity in his past, all the while embracing life and its small wondrous experiences.

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LibraryThing member MarthaJeanne

I got past 50 pages before deciding not to waste more time on this.

I do appreciate that if someone is going to leave his stories hanging it is better that he does this after 10 pages than after 400. But I still don't like it.

LibraryThing member voteunion

I came across Raymond Carver in graduate school, a few months before his death in 1988, with "What We Talk about when We Talk about Love." I recently revisited "Cathedral," his 1979 masterpiece, in a collection of his short stories. Carver is often compared to Chekhov, his literary influence, but I

argue the better comparison is Hemingway. Carver's stories are about broken people suffering from failed marriages, substance abuse, alcoholism, and flaws in their characters. His writing is sparse and pared of ornament, sentences stripped to carefully chosen verbs and nouns, but told in the natural voices of a cross-section of America. "Cathedral" is the closest we get to an uplifting story from Carver. It is the story of a man who cannot see past his daily life and his whiskey glass. A strange blind man knows more about the unnamed narrator's wife than he does. He is a man who works a job he hates and comes home to the TV and the bottle, what Thoreau called "a life of quiet desperation." A visit from a blind man, an old friend of his wife's, forces the narrator to face his superficiality:

"He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the
movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed... a blind man in my house
was not something I looked forward to."

Soon, however, the narrator learns to see his wife's friend as someone who suffers just as the narrator does, but is more honest about his sorrows, mainly the death of his wife:

"Hearing this, I felt sorry for the blind man for a bit. And then I found myself thinking
what a pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see
herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman could go on day after
day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved. A woman whose
husband could never read the expression on her face, be it misery or something
better. Someone who could wear makeup or not-what difference to him... Pathetic.

The narrator could easily be describing himself. As the story ends, the narrator attempts to describe to the blind man a cathedral he sees on TV. When language fails, he takes a pen and paper draws the cathedral on paper, the blind man's hands on his, tracing the shapes for the blind man to feel: "So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now." Our narrator learns that he can only see truly when he sees through the eyes of the blind.

Cathedral's narrator is the only Carver character in the collection to mature, to escape the lke of desperation. Carver's other alcoholic characters aren't so lucky. "Where I'm Calling from" is a story told by a man in a drug-counseling center somewhere in California's Sonoma Valley , his second time there, and as we gather from his narration, it will not be his last. Sobriety is a temporary sojourn from alcoholism, and he is too weak to ever escape it. So, too with the narrator of "Chef's House," a man who temporarily escapes heavy drinking to reconnect with his ex-wife and manage a summer of happiness in Crescent City. But when his landlord has to evict he and his wife, the reader knows that the bliss was only temporary, the hold of alcohol is too strong, and we end the story imagining the unstated, the narrator alone again, in some seedy bar with knotty pine walls, drunk at 3:30 in the afternoon, his wife long left.

Thus it is with Carver. His stories are snapshots of people on or beginning their decline, yet each character still manages some measure of dignity, even if false. Carver reminds us, as Longfellow once wrote, that "in the wreck of human lives, something noble still survives."

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LibraryThing member jeffome

loved this even though several endings baffled me a bit, but likely that was the point, I was immediately captivated with each scenario within a sentence or 2 and wanted to know what happens next....not always the case today with modern fiction, but it is, after all, why i love to read!!

LibraryThing member ericnguyen09

When mentioning the art of the short story, we eventually come to the subject of Raymond Carver. Brought to the height of his career in the 1980s, Carver was known for revival of the short form and for his curt, direct style of writing that came to be known as dirty realism. Of course, there was

the controversy between Carver and his editor, Gordon Lish, but by the time Cathedral came out, Carver had already distanced himself away from the editor (he actually re-wrote "The Bath" which in a 21 page extension re-titled "A Small Good Thing.) Cathedral, Carver's last book, shows an evolved writer beyond the minimalist to show something sad (yes, the book is rather depressing) yet essentially human.

Among the stories collected here is of course the title story, widely anthologized and widely held as Carver's masterpiece. Within its 19 pages, we see a story of a marriage falling apart and a man's blindness to his love life. The falling apart of life is a theme in the collection. In the dozen stories, we see not only marriages falling apart ("Vitamins") but also families ("The Compartment") and selfhoods ("Where I'm Calling From"). What makes Carver's collection distinct though, is that people don't just fall apart, life slips away from them, but they really have no choice but to survive.

His movement is called dirty realism for a reason.

Among my favorite stories are "Vitamins," "A Small Good Thing," and "The Train," but everything is worth reading, and you shouldn't be skipping around in a short story collection anyway. To read Cathedral, like any short story collection, you read the first story and then you progress, you savor.

Within the Carver's stories, what we taste is a bitter sadness mixed with a subtle hint of fear, but Carver realistically portrays life (that depressing thing) a raw, simple language that you can't help but feel cut, yet want to read on, maybe a bit more.

While some might complain that the stories don't progress and that "nothing happens," these are the same people looking at fiction for escapism. Which is not wrong. It's just not what Carver does. To read Carver to examine your own life and the lives of other through a magnifying glass. This aren't fables, kids.

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LibraryThing member watki108

This short story, to be honest, took a while to hook me in. After I read the story, however, I wish it could have gone on longer. This is one of those stories where once you get into it, you don't want to put it down. I thought it was going to be another long, short story assigned to read for my

english class, after reading the first few paragraphs. The narrator, known as "Bub" in the story, talks about a blind man, his wife's ex husband, and how all three of them tie together. Thats why I was not into it at first.
Then the blabbering on about the blind man and the narrators wife's relationship to the blind man (which is good to know but boring to read about) got me even less entrigued. Stating that, when the blind man actually comes to visit the narrator and his wife, things pick up a lot more. Throughout the whole story, the narrator refers to the blind man as the "blind man" when really his name is Robert. The more the narrator gets to know the blind man, the more respect he gives to him. You can see this throughout the story as he refers to him as Robert when they have a tie together, such as drinking scotch, smoking marijuana, and the ending of the story, which I won't give away for all of you who are yet to read the story.
Another thing that caught me off guard was all of the alcohol consumption and smoking marijuana! This was a good change up because it kept the story exciting and showed how Robert was eager to befriend the narrator and get to know him.
The ending was also great, how it showed the narrators complete transformation from having a biast opinion against the blind man in the beginning of the story, to the end of the story when he was completely "into" Roberts shoes.

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LibraryThing member sarasegal

I love the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. As opposed to most literature I have been assigned to read since being a university student, this story is very straightforward. It’s told in first person which gives the reader insight into the narrator’s point of view. In this case the

narrator is a husband who has a strange antagonism towards a blind man named Robert who is friends with his wife. Throughout the narrative, through the eyes of the husband, the reader gets insight into the marriage between the husband and wife. Almost humorously, the husband ridicules and judges the blind man while remaining completely blind to the fact that his marriage has become lifeless and lonely. I really like this subject because I think it’s very prevalent in real life. Humans have an incredible ability to find everything wrong with everyone else in order to ignore the problems in their own lives. Carver does a wonderful job capturing this irony. However, he doesn’t leave the reader feeling depressed; the ending is actually rather uplifting. In the end the husband is able to “see” from the blind man’s perspective and this fills me with great hope. Humans may remain blind to their own faults but once they find the truth, that they are the makers of their own unhappiness, they are able to change themselves and their lives.

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LibraryThing member casid100

The short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story told in the first person, which allows the reader to be given insight to what he is thinking and the revelations he makes. At the beginning of the story he is very hesitant and skeptical about meeting his wife’s friend who is blind,

whom he refers to as the “blind man” for a majority of the story. The first person allows the reader to learn that he does not have anything against blind people he has simply never met a blind man and does not know really how to act around them as he accidently asks him about the scenic train ride and if he has a television which he is surprised to learn that he has two of. Also through the point of view we are able to learn that he man and his wife have a somewhat troubled marriage as he seems to be jealous of her previous marriage and the relationship she shares with Robert (the blind man). After meeting the Robert the man seems to take a liking to him and almost seemingly fills a void of being lonely by hanging out with him after his wife goes to bed. The situation is very ironic and Carver crafts the situation very well and would not have been clearly understood without the story being written in the first person. After the television was turned on and the men begin to discuss a cathedral, Robert asks him to describe one to him and then to draw one and close his eyes. This brings the man even closer to Robert and leads to a huge character growth as he learns to see things how his new acquaintance Robert sees them.

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LibraryThing member bui117

In Raymond Carver’s short story, “Cathedral” the readers is observing the visit of the close, blind friend of the main character’s wife through a first person point of view. Though it is a limited view, we get a perfect sense of everything that is going on by just reading the narrator’s

observations and noting his behaviors. We get the idea that he is a very crude character in terms of personality. Perhaps for that purpose his wife claims he has no social life. He even hates what he does for a living. We get the straightforward feeling that this guy is a bitter man, just trying to survive a short visit from a blind man, who he is possibly jealous of, given that the man is closer to his wife than he is. Although this was exactly opposite of the “7/8th iceberg technique”, it leaves out a few unanswered questions at the end. Did he manage to draw a cathedral? Could the blind man tell what the drawing looked like? Was he even blind? Did the narrator suddenly have a change in character by the end? Perhaps by the end he had opened up just a little to the perspective of others. It interested me a great deal the reason behind why he didn’t open his eyes when the blind man told him to. I believe the mystery of not knowing these things by the end is a necessity to this story. I like just being able to just to think about what the answers to the ending would be.

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LibraryThing member patri104

During the story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, point of view plays an essential role in the reader’s interpretation of the story. The narrator maintains a first person point of view throughout the story and as a result, the reader only sees the story through the eyes of the main character.

When the main character’s wife invites a blind man to stay with them, the husband (main character) is apprehensive and may be a little jealous of the relationship between his wife and the blind man. For example, the wife has to nearly beg her husband to allow the blind man’s visit by exclaiming, “If you love me…you can do this for me.” Because the husband has little knowledge of this relationship, he has difficulty processing the blind man’s visit. Further, because the reader has little background of the relationship between the blind man and the wife, the reader is processing the visit with the same knowledge as the narrator. Because both the narrator and the reader are outsiders in this relationship, they have a connection because they are both interpreting the reactions of both parties with no previous knowledge. As a result, the narrator is the reader’s only source of information. This may hinder the reader’s interpretation of the wife and the blind man because they are unable to see the depth of these characters and their relationship together. Further, the reader may take on the same view as the narrator and remain skeptical of their relationship because of the mystery behind it. For example, during the conversation between the wife and the blind man, the narrator stated that “they talked about things that had happened to them-to them!- these past ten years.” This explains that their relationship is also a mystery to the narrator. As a result, point of view gives the reader one view of the story, and gives them a connection with the main character as they learn more about the blind man and wife’s relationship simultaneously.

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LibraryThing member schne112

The short story, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story told through a single perspective of a fairly closed off character in the story. He is a rather unpleasant character, which made his perspective difficult to enjoy reading. The story exaggerates stereotypical human flaws, compacting them

all into this one character who “Has no friends” explained by his wife. He is outwardly racist as he says, “Beulah! That’s a name for a black woman.” He is talking about a woman who has just died in this part of the story, widowing a blind man. For a majority of the beginning of the story Carver is highlighting each and every hardened flaw that the character has. Carver uses a blind man as the heroin who is introduced to the story to contrast and bring light to the hardened perspective of the story. The unpleasant man ends up having a private epiphany while deciding to empathize with the blind man, and experience what he goes through. The missing relational trait that the man has is revealed in his single action. Though I enjoyed the style of writing in “Cathedral,” I feel like it undermined the readers own introspective voice. The black and white contrast of good and bad human nature, then a life change due to the introduction of the innocence represented by the blind man undermined the epiphany that he experienced in my opinion.

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LibraryThing member shaml101

Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” is an enjoyable read. While the beginning is slow and at times a bit confusing due to the fact that the main character does not use the names of the people he is talking about and mainly sticks with “he” and “she.” However, as the story

progresses the writing becomes more clear and enjoyable. The story is written in the point of view of Carver’s main character. The story revolves around the visit of a blind man who the main character’s wife has invited to their home. The main character states that the blind man makes him uncomfortable because the main character has never been around a blind man before. However, as the story progresses the audience begins to see that the main character is not only uncomfortable due to the fact that the man is blind but that he also feels insecure about the relationship between the blind man and the main character’s wife. Throughout the story Carver implicitly reveals that the main character and his wife are having problems. For example, the main character’s wife continuously shoots him dirty looks when he speaks, and it is subtly revealed that they never go to bed together. Despite the lack of understanding, however, in the end the main character finally allows himself to experience what it is like to be blind when he draws a cathedral with his eyes closed. This ending demonstrates a growth in the main character as he allows himself to experience something new.

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LibraryThing member riley116

In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, point of view plays an important role of how the story is perceived. The man has a sense of suspicion in the relationship between the blind man and the woman. As a reader you only know as much information as he does. This has an effect on the

reader in the way that you become suspicious as well. The way the woman speaks the blind man is as if he is filling the void where he husband should be. The man’s careless, dull tone demonstrates the unhappiness and lack of satisfaction he feels in his own life. He is also very judgmental which becomes evident when he hears about the blind man’s wife and automatically thinks “Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman”. At this point his credibility as a narrator declines as he shows himself to be so narrow-minded. You begin to feel sorry for the man as he “waits in vain to hear his name of his wife’s sweet lips”. It is obvious that the couple’s relationship is suffering as the man finds comfort for his pain in alcohol and marijuana. The husband is jealous of the blind man and his wife’s relationship. He sees how much she enjoys the blind man’s company and how accomplished he is. This resentment shows the darkness the husband feels inside.

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LibraryThing member singh116

Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” examines the inter-workings of a failing marriage through the metaphorically blind and limited eyes of a husband juxtaposed to the literal blindness and understanding of his wife’s friend Robert. The husband has an uneasiness with Robert, rooting from his lack

of interaction with a blind person and his suspicions of his intimate relationship with his wife. His views of Robert are entirely imbued by stereotypes of how blind men behave, believing they wear dark glasses and do not smoke. Carver uses his ignorance of the man to essentially emphasize his ignorance in his marriage. This first-person viewpoint and behavior allow the reader to better understand the husband and his outlook on his relationship. The conversation and relationship between husband and wife are limited. The wife disregards his emotions and focuses completely on Robert, except for the occasional arguing with her husband. The husband, on the other hand, attempts to make the rare comment in her conversations with Robert to show his engagement and care, but is nearly totally focused upon Robert’s blindness. Thus, Carver’s use of detailed description from the first-person viewpoint of the husband alongside the extended metaphor of blindness shines light on the schism between husband and wife in their relationship. Despite having each other, there exists an isolation and alienation. Furthermore, the husband’s interaction with Robert brings about new revelation and change in the husband. The uneasiness disappears with time as the whiskey and peace pipe emerge. The epitome of his transition occurs with the conversation over the cathedral on the television. His attempts at communicating the cathedral by closing his eyes and allowing Robert to follow his hands in drawing it, give him a facet of connection. Carver goes beyond cathedral’s being “something to look at” in order to parallel his relationship with his wife. The husband delves into deeper understanding and introspection, understanding blindness and freeing himself from the isolation. The husband’s transformation over the course of the short story and his understanding of the blindness give hope of a dynamic change in his stagnant, passive character and possible resolution in his marriage.

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LibraryThing member gille108

Personally, I rather enjoyed this story. First off, I’ve grown rather attached to first person writing. I feel like I become the character and therefore better understand them. So I was very happy with “Cathedral” being in first person. I feel like I got more out of it than I would have had

it been in third person. Whenever I read a story, I tend to look for plot structure and character development, which is probably a good thing to tend to do being a film major emphasizing in directing. I try to find a moment where the main character shows the most growth. I rather enjoyed “Cathedral” because the character growth was so well laid out. The main character found his wife’s blind friend offensive because of the close relationship they had, and because of the fact that he had never been around a blind man before. It was interesting to watch his thoughts about the man change as the story went on. He first called the blind man “the blind man,” then started to switch off between “the blind man” and the blind man’s actual name: Robert. Because it was first person, it was so easy to see the thoughts of the character change from offense and discomfort to friendly and accommodating. It was a very good character development story, and all around interesting story-wise.

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LibraryThing member kofee

The Cathedral tells of a blind man who comes and stays at the house of a family friend for a few days. The family consists of a wife and a husband and it is the wife that the blind man is friends with. The narrator, who is the husband, has mixed feelings about this visit because in many ways this

blind man seems to have a better relationship with his wife than he does. For one, his wife has known the blind man longer than she has known him and they are in constant communication frequently sending each other tapes with updates of their lives. In reaction, the narrator begins to have feelings of jealousy and begins to seek ways in which to make himself feel superior to the blind man. This is difficult for this particular character because he seems to have an isolated and miserable life as displayed through his hatred of his job as well as his drinking habits. So he uses the obvious weakness of the blind man and finds that feeling of superiority in knowing that he can see and the blind man cannot. When he first meets the blind man, he makes inappropriate and rude remarks such as asking the blind man if he sat on the side of the train that had the more scenic view. However, over the course of the story the narrator changes his perception of the blind man that was established before he ever met the man through interaction and conversation and begins to connect with his guest. He realizes that they have much in common such as mutual love of scotch. By the end of the story the narrator is able to come full circle and puts himself in the place of the blind man by drawing a picture of the cathedral while keeping his eyes closed. This symbolizes the narrator coming to terms with the differences between the blind man and himself and his ability to brush aside their differences. The moral of the story is that it is easy to judge people that are different and this usually results in hatred and ignorance, but once an individual has personally experienced that thing which is unknown to them, such as being blind, their perception becomes much clearer and many times more understanding.

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LibraryThing member andyray

reminiscent of hemingway in his simple prose, the stories are not always there. some of these pieces are vignettes, as they do not have a perceivable climax or denouement. in fact, sometimes it seems the piece simply ends without any notice. i like reading these and do get a feeling of wonder from

them. maybe he has a style all his own, but if he does, it can get better.

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LibraryThing member NateJordon

While "Where I'm Calling From" and "Cathedral" are probably two of the best short-stories in American literature, the rest of the stories in this collection don't reach the same high-water mark. These are snapshots into the mundane lives of ordinary people - which may be poetic in one sense but

makes for a boring read in another. While there isn't much happening in the stories, Carver's pacing is also painfully slow at times. Nonetheless, Carver is a master of the craft - what he does with point-of-view is amazing. I recommend this book to all short-story writers - take notes - there's much to learn from Carver's style.

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LibraryThing member MorganHelmstetter

Raymond Carver's, "Cathedral" was a story that I was able to understand, while including many symbols left to the unknown. The story starts out with a man's point of view discussing his wife's relationship with her old blind friend. Names are never really discussed in the story, which I feel the

author does on purpose. When I began reading, it gave me a vibe that the relationship between the husband and wife is not very strong and they have marital issues. When the blind man is introduced, the husband sort of backs off because he is not comfortable with the thought of someone being "blind".
After the main characters get to know each other, they begin to feel more comfortable, like many cases with people. The story is titled "Cathedral" to describe the relationship between the blind man and the husband at the end, where they are drawing together. The man begins to draw closer to the blind man because they have many common interests, one including drawing. He feels as though it is amazing that a man that cannot see, is able to feel the drawing without the actual look.
Overall, this story gave me a sense of comfort, while a form of discrimination is discovered. While the husband first judges the blind man, he then develops a strong bond and is able to come out of his discomfort enjoying life.

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LibraryThing member lee319

I thought Cathedral was an interesting prompt, however I am not sure whether I like it or not because the person’s point of view and what he says shows that he is not very happy and the tone of his thoughts are negative and sarcastic. So I am not sure as the reader to believe that what happened

that night was what actually occurred. There are many instances where the audience can see that the narrator and his wife are having problems in their marriage and having a blind man staying over is an instance where the husband is insecure about having another man, especially someone who is handicapped come to his house. Such examples are when he mentions how his wife pays so much attention to Robert but whenever he makes a comment, all she gives is a very dirty look. She says in the beginning “If you love me…you can do this for me. If you don’t love me, okay….you don’t have any friends…period.” It looks like to me she is not saying this in a loving manner, especially with the word choices too. It even seems that she is more attracted to Robert than her own husband. Aside from the wife’s actions, there is what the narrator says that makes it obvious that he is upset and so his sarcasm is a result of his unwillingness to get to know Robert. Plus the man has not even met a blind person in his life and comes up with some interesting stereotypes such as “[using] a cane and…[wearing] dark glasses.” Plus there is not much mention of Robert except for the fact that he touches his beard often and does things that the narrator did not expect him to do, like smoking.
However it all changed once Cathedrals were mentioned. I would have never guessed that out of all the things in the world, it would be a church that would bring two men to what would appear to be an understanding. Why? Even with these questions I liked the part when the narrator closes his eyes. Just that simple gesture gives him such a new experience that he wanted his eyes to remain closed. To see the revelation of a man in total opposing of a blind man now start to come to a better understanding was I thought was really neat.

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LibraryThing member plorenzo

In Raymond Carver’s short story, “ Cathedral,” he demonstrates how people can cast judgment upon others they do not know or understand. The narrator in the story is bothered by the idea that a blind man he doesn’t know is staying in his house. Carver uses this to bring out all the flaws in

the husband and his insecurities as a person and husband. In this story you see the husband have struggles with his wife, the blind man, but mostly himself. You can infer in this story that the man hates what he has become, a dead end job, no friends, and a wife he seems to never spend time with. The blind man brings all of this to light with his visit, and you could say that the husband in many cases is jealous of the blind man because of the relationship he shares with the man’s wife. The blind man is everything that the man is not and you can see the blind mans innocence and almost angle like quality. In the end of the story when the husband is drawing the cathedral for the blind man and is asked to open his eyes, he has an epiphany about his life and feelings toward the blind man. The connection he shares with the blind man while drawing the cathedral almost gives him a sense that he is free.

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LibraryThing member mjonas

The narrator in “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver, can be viewed as a typical, working class man in American society. His reaction to his wife’s blind friend, Robert, displays a sense of ignorance and insecurity about the man’s disability. The insecurity he portrays could be related to the

relationship he has with his wife. The narrator is very descriptive of his wife’s reaction when Robert arrives, noting how she couldn’t stop smiling and looking at him. His insecurities are also evident in his remarks to his wife about bowling with Robert and asking him what side of the train he sat on. In instances like this, his insecurities are seen as jealousy.
The end if the story shows a turning point in the narrator’s life. He has an epiphany “with his eyes closed,” which is ironic considering epiphanies are seen as an awakening. His epiphany is a result of Robert, who is viewed as a “saint figure,” and how they bond over drawing a cathedral. This is a crucial part of the story because not only does the narrator become a more compassionate, understanding person, but he also seems to have an indirect connection with his wife. This connection is made because the narrator finally understands the profound influence Robert had on his wife in the past.

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LibraryThing member schre108

In Cathedral by Raymond Carver we discover a narrator who is not open to new ideas, who is enclosed upon himself, and who is unwilling to step outside of his comfort zone. The narrator has to house his wife’s blind friend for a night and feels very uneasy about this situation: “I wasn’t

enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (273). The narrator doesn’t form his opinions based on experiences and has many preconceived notions about blind people: “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (273). When the narrator hears that the blind man’s wife’s name was Beulah he assumes that she was a colored woman: “Her name was Beulah. Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman” (275). From all of these incidents, we are able to see that the narrator is close minded, that he fears the unknown and that this fear is the root of his prejudice. It isn’t until the end of the story (when the narrator is showing the blind man how to draw a cathedral) that he is able to step inside his shoes and view the world from a different perspective.

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