Roger Chillingworth is the major blockade inhibiting Hester Prynne from discovering contentment in her life. Initially, it is effortless to sympathize with the old man, seeing as the first thing he witnesses when he arrives in Boston is his duplicitous wife on the scaffold. He is first described as scholarly, yet deformed, “There was a remarkable intelligence in his features…a seemingly careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavored to conceal or abate the peculiarity…one of…
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…
looked forward to” (Carver 84). The narrator does not even…
“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a short story set somewhere in the state of New York during the early stages of color television. The wife, Beulah, brings a blind man, Robert, over to her house to introduce him to her husband. During that evening and most of the story, the focus is on the husband’s view of the blind man and how it changes once he spends time with him. At the end of the story, the husband is experiencing something that he did not predict would happen, and is surprised by it. By…
and lacks emotion when describing his wife’s past life and the blind man. An example of this is shown here, “His wife had died. So he was visiting the dead wife’s relatives in Connecticut. He called my wife from his in-laws. Arrangements were made” (Carver). The narrator’s tone is short and lacking emotion for the reason that in the beginning he is closed minded and has no zest for life. The narrator also sort of guides the reader through the story in the beginning, which Peterson explains in…
Can a person be gifted with perfect sight and yet still be blind? Raymond Carver attempts to answer this question in his short story “Cathedral” when he suggests two types of blindness: physical blindness which leaves one without visual perception and a narrow-minded blindness which causes one to fail to see the true side of people due to his or her stereotypical views and fixed opinions. In fact, in this story, a physically blind man happens to see more of the world, in a cognitive way, than a…
In this short reader's response essay I will simply describe or explain why I think, feel, or believe that the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek" is the best from this week. I think the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek” was the best from this week. This was the the best short story to me because it offers two different types of conflicts and it also has the best plot. It shows that the main character Peyton was experiencing issues within himself as well as with a few members of the…
dispute faced by people for many different reasons; these reasons include religion, race, ethnicity, physical and mental disabilities, and almost any kind of diversity in general. In the short story titled “Cathedral”, written by author Raymond Carver, Carver illustrates character growth of a protagonist through the our unnamed narrator – referred to as “Bub” by Robert – when he undergoes a transformative experience realizing he should not discriminate or judge Robert or other individuals based…
Robert Carver uses the character Bub, in his short story “Cathedral”, to demonstrate the difference between being physically blind and emotionally blind. Bub proves that he is capable of seeing the physical things around him, such as his wife, his home, his marijuana, and even the blind man Robert, who eventually changes his outlook on life. However, these sights are all on the surface and have no deep meaning to Bub and his one track minded life style. In fact others authors including Mark…
own flaws. In both Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, and A Good Man Is Hard To Find, by Flannery O’Connor, the central characters are forced to deal with circumstances that change their beliefs about themselves and others. The authenticity of these two stories show you the dangers of ignorance and how you should live life the first time around. In Cathedral, there are two main characters. There is the husband, and a blind man named Robert. Raymond Carver details two polarizing characters: the…