The differences between two characters can be the driving force behind the story. In the short story “Cathedral,” Raymond Carver depicts a story of a blind man, Robert, who goes to stay with his old friend and her husband, the narrator, for a night. In the story, Carver subtly explores many aspects of the narrators’ and Roberts’ characters. While the narrator is more rude and reserved, Robert is more polite and expressive. Carver exemplifies many differences between the two men. The main differences explored between the narrator and Robert in “Cathedral” are their ability to communicate, ability to see in depth, relationship with the wife, and respective marriages. While the narrator faces difficulties with communicating, especially with
…show more content…
Rather than be honest about what he thinks and help her improve her writing ability, he refrains from giving his opinions and keeps to himself. Additionally, the narrator comments on how he and his wife would go to bed separately on a consistent basis and when he would “go to sleep, I had these dreams. Sometime I’d wake up from one of them, my heart going crazy” (9). The narrator would have night terrors that cause him to wake up in sweat; however, his wife does not know about it as he never tells her. Generally, it is easier for people to communicate in a marriage; however, the narrator can not open up to his wife even after years of marriage. Robert, on the other hand, has no problem communicating. For the last ten years, he has been exchanging letters and tapes with the wife consistently. Letters and tapes are a very intimate form of communication, as …show more content…
When Robert persuades the narrator to describe the cathedrals on the television, the narrator describes them as “very tall… they reach way up. Up and Up. toward the sky. They’re so big, some of them, they have to have these supports. To help hold them up, so to speak. . . They’re really big. They’re massive. They’re made of stone” (6). The narrator can only see things on a superficial level. He continuously repeats how the cathedral is very big, never mentioning the history or spirituality aspects of the stained glass or the marble statues. Not only that, but the way the narrator is speaking indicates his inability to properly describe the cathedral. His sentences are very simple and choppy, as if he can not delve into anything deeper than the height of the cathedral. Even when the narrator first met Robert, rather than see him as the man who had lost his wife or his wife’s long time friend, he could only see him as “This blind man” (1). Robert, on the other hand, is able to understand the importance of things on a much deeper level. When the narrator asks Robert what he knows of cathedrals, Robert replies by saying he knows how “they took hundreds of workers fifty or a hundred years to build. . .I know generations of the same families woke on a cathedral…The men who began their life’s work on them, they never lived to see the
Rather than be honest about what he thinks and help her improve her writing ability, he refrains from giving his opinions and keeps to himself. Additionally, the narrator comments on how he and his wife would go to bed separately on a consistent basis and when he would “go to sleep, I had these dreams. Sometime I’d wake up from one of them, my heart going crazy” (9). The narrator would have night terrors that cause him to wake up in sweat; however, his wife does not know about it as he never tells her. Generally, it is easier for people to communicate in a marriage; however, the narrator can not open up to his wife even after years of marriage. Robert, on the other hand, has no problem communicating. For the last ten years, he has been exchanging letters and tapes with the wife consistently. Letters and tapes are a very intimate form of communication, as …show more content…
When Robert persuades the narrator to describe the cathedrals on the television, the narrator describes them as “very tall… they reach way up. Up and Up. toward the sky. They’re so big, some of them, they have to have these supports. To help hold them up, so to speak. . . They’re really big. They’re massive. They’re made of stone” (6). The narrator can only see things on a superficial level. He continuously repeats how the cathedral is very big, never mentioning the history or spirituality aspects of the stained glass or the marble statues. Not only that, but the way the narrator is speaking indicates his inability to properly describe the cathedral. His sentences are very simple and choppy, as if he can not delve into anything deeper than the height of the cathedral. Even when the narrator first met Robert, rather than see him as the man who had lost his wife or his wife’s long time friend, he could only see him as “This blind man” (1). Robert, on the other hand, is able to understand the importance of things on a much deeper level. When the narrator asks Robert what he knows of cathedrals, Robert replies by saying he knows how “they took hundreds of workers fifty or a hundred years to build. . .I know generations of the same families woke on a cathedral…The men who began their life’s work on them, they never lived to see the