Brent Carver

At each twist and turn in the story he is always there to add a harsh comment, usually towards his wife’s blind friend. One specific time can be noticed during a conversation with his wife about the blind man’s late wife. “Was his wife a Negro?”(Carver, ), he asks. Not much compassion is expected from him as we make our way further into the story. While simply watching a cathedral on TV requires the use of actual vision, seeing and understanding…

Blindness and disability is a strong theme in literature. Raymond Carver penned the 1983 short story Cathedral in an anthology of the same name. The story centers on an unnamed narrator, who has a strong sense of dislike towards a blind friend of his wife’s. Throughout the visit of Robert, the blind man, the narrator learns more about himself and passes on a message of tolerance and understanding to the reader. Carver’s work was later published in Best American Short Stories, 1982. The majority…

“Fat” by Raymond Carver is the first short story in a collection called Will You Please Be Quiet, Please. Carver intrigued me because of his unique style of writing and captivated me from the first short story I read. This short story is a conversation between the narrator and her friend Rita, as she serves a fat man in the diner where they both work. The story, whilst seemingly is a ‘slice of life’ everyday mundane observation, slowly becomes more uncomfortable and unsettles dark secrets that…

the short story, we experience how the two characters interact and open up to each other. While smoking the joint together, the narrator is amazed by the fact that even blind men can smoke, “like he’d been doing it since he was nine years of age” (Carver 45). The narrator eventually comes to the conclusion that visual impairment does not prevent a man to be the same as him but rather everything is somehow similar. However, he raises that his better half’s robe has disappeared and this introduces…

“Cathedral” is a story about a man’s changing views, based on a growing and learning experience that he faces throughout the story. The man’s speech on his wife about her initial contact with the blind man begins passively: her job to work for the man is simply a job, nothing more. The narrator grows a rapid jealousy and resentment, following the event where his wife allowed the blind man to touch her face, although his initial reaction to reading the poem about the event is blank and unmoving,…

R.K.Narayan’s ‘Talkative Man’-A Mini Novel of Many Characters: A Study A. Phaniraja Kumar Abstract: Talkative Man is a short novel based on a man’s life in his struggle to make his reputation as a renowned journalist(TM) in the well-known modern town of Malgudi. It also describes the charisma of born flirt Dr. Rann and his Home Guard wife, Sarasa. In this novel R.K.Narayan focuses on characters rather than incidents. It is an entertaining read with humorous moments juxtaposed…

Looking But Not Seeing. Appreciably, blindness is a dominant theme woven through the garment of the “Cathedral” story by Raymond Carver. One is taken aback by the utter rawness and cold attitude exhibited by the narrator about the blind man. The narrator loudly wonders on who could dare attend a little wedding between Robert, the blind man and his sweetheart Beulah and further states that he does not have any blind person as a friend. As the story develops, one thing becomes certain that the…

accepting of his wife contacting the blind man named Robert with the help of tapes. When he came to visit the couple, the narrator, known as "Bub," was shocked to find that the stereotypes of blind men, which he learned by watching movies, were all false. Carver made Bub to be blind, not physically, but to what communication can lead to. At the beginning, Bub was blind to the world, as he rarely made any communication with anyone, including his wife. He had a stereotype for, what seemed like,…

Raymond Carver write's, " Little Things" and portrays a real example of a couple in a disagreement with symbolism. The symbolism allows the reader to have a visual of people who are together that find some of the smallest things to argue about that turns into something much bigger. Carver does a good job of showing the repercussions when the smaller things get to someone rather than letting it go. Life becomes simpler when the arguing of simple, pointless things is reduced to a low amount.…

Men tend to be possessive and aggressive, especially in the case of their spouses. This reigns especially true for the narrator in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral.” When the narrator's wife has a male friend stay over, her husband’s true colors begin to show, as he makes predetermined judgements based solely upon jealousy. Robert, a blind man, causes the narrator to shift from judgemental and ignorant to accepting and aware through getting him to see through his eyes. From the moment the…