Anton Chekhov

In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral", the narrator seems to have a small minded approach towards life. In the beginning, the narrator ridicules his wife's past lover, and Robert's (the blind man's) wife, Beulah. When the narrator begins to explain the story behind Robert's wife, he states that there wedding "was a little wedding—who’d want to go to such a wedding in the first place?—"( page 3). In this, the narrator is seen to be negative and bitter towards Robert. Similarly, the narrator ridicules…

Interpretive Response #1 To Look or To See Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” centers upon a narrator who is psychologically blind to the world around him. Although the narrator is not physically blind and he is capable of looking at the world from his own naïve perspective, he’s incapable of actually seeing anything beyond the surface. He is detached from the world around him, isolating himself in a sheltered world that he has created for himself. His ignorance of the unknown seems to scare him,…

A cathedral is a large church from the Gothic period, but in Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral”, a cathedral represents much more than that. The story of Cathedral is about an unknown man whose wife invites a long-standing friend over to stay, who happens to be blind. The unknown man, who is the narrator, is unhappy about the blind man’s visit for he has prejudices against blind people, as he has never met a blind person before. In the end, he overcomes his prejudices and everyone has a…

Raymond Carver “Jerry and Molly and Sam” is a short story of a man who is an alcoholic. The story takes us to the life of an alcoholic whose name is Al. Because Al hates the dog he plans “to get rid of the dog without Betty or the kids finding out about it” (Carver 15). This is significant because he thinks that getting rid of dog will fix all his problems. Furthermore, he thinks that the dog is useless. According to Stephanie Harrison, editor of the Adaptations, she emphasizes that most of…

Can a person learn something from communicating with someone else? For some people connecting with new people is difficult and one might question the idea of connecting with new people. For example, in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” The narrator is unhappy about the blind man Robert coming to stay at his house. Then, the narrator starts to enjoy Robert’s company. While, they are watching T.V. Robert tells the narrator to fetch a piece of heavy paper. Lastly, the narrator and Robert draw a picture…

Point of View, Who’s Perception? “Sonny’s Blues,” a short story written by James Baldwin, is expressed in the limited omniscient point of view. Limited omniscient point of view is most commonly referred to as first person point of view. The focus of this essay is to analyze the point of view used in “Sonny’s Blues,” while also revealing how symbolism is reflected in this short story written by Baldwin (Baldwin). There are advantages and disadvantages of a story being expressed in the limited…

Leo Tolstoy and James Joyce both use the aspect of light and darkness as symbols in their stories to represent the characters and their feelings. In The Death of Ivan and Ilyich, one of the symbols Tolstoy uses is the black sack. This sack was a long narrow sack that was never ending and the character in the story, Ivan, experiences going through this black sack twice. The first time he experiences going through this sack was right after he was given a medicine, opium. Ivan falls into the black…

Raymond Carver is best known for his work as a short story writer, he started the minimalist movement, releasing popular collections of short stories like "Cathedral", the Pulitzer Prize nominated "Where I 'm Calling From" that came out shortly before Carver 's death, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", & "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?". Carver helped bring life back to short stories at a time when they were thought to be going away. He was born on May 25, 1938 in the state of…

In Cathedral, a short story written by Raymond Carver, the narrator seems to have a kind of dysfunctional type of relationship with his wife. The wife seems like a kind and emotional person while the narrator is kind of closed off emotionally. This differences can sometimes lead to small arguments like the one they had when he offered to take the blind man to bowling “God dam it, his wife just died! Don’t you understand that? The man just lost his wife! (Carver, 1983)”. Even though, the man is…

Marlee Whittington Antley Ap Lit & Comp-4 26 August 2016 Characterization Essay #1 (Miss Brill) In her short story, “Miss Brill,” Katherine Mansfield uses a variety of techniques such as descriptions, thoughts, and actions to fully characterize Miss Brill. She does so in a way to convey Miss Brill’s behaviors that “help” her to cope with her loneliness. One behavior Miss Brill has is that she wears a beloved old fur that is her “prized possession” every Sunday to the…