Raymond Carver Sources for your Essay

Raymond Carver\'s Short Story \"Cathedral\" Explores a


Whereas the blind man is literally blind to color, the narrator asks, "Was his wife a Negro?" (Section 12). By the time Carver wrote "Cathedral," in the 1980s, the word Negro had fallen out of use and this term can therefore be considered a racial slur (Kiviat)

Serious Talk by Raymond Carver


"It was the day after Christmas." (Carver 162) The immediate setting of the day after Christmas confirms the theme and immediately creates a reader's sense of inflation and subsequent deflation of hope and promise

Serious Talk by Raymond Carver


As noted by Michael Wood in The New York Times in regards to the frequent silences and apparent lack of conflict in Carver, "a good deal of the unsayable gets said." (Wood, 1981) And, one might add, a good deal of anger is expressed, if not in words, then by physical suggestion and in the dialogue

Raymond Carver Cathedral Raymond Carver


" (Carver, NP) Later, the narrator again describes the situation, the masculine feeling of jealousy and the need for affirmation. (Bullock 343) "They talked of things that had happened to them -- the them!-these past ten years

Raymond Carver Cathedral Raymond Carver


I Shrugged." (Carver, NP) Later, the narrator again describes the situation, the masculine feeling of jealousy and the need for affirmation

Raymond Carver Cathedral Raymond Carver


(Carver NP) Robert's inclusion of the narrator in the epiphany which had initially kept the connection of his wife and Robert over so many years strong served a restorative role, that the reader then hopes the narrator will allow to pervade his and his wife's life together and save them from losing the dream of their love and life together. (Facknitz 287-296) Carver's careful use of narration, building the unlikable character of the narrator, the symbolism of the poem experience, which the narrator had initially rejected, correlating it to the shared drawing of the cathedral a topic the narrator has also rejected in the narration, builds the full experience of the couple

Raymond Carver Cathedral Raymond Carver


Clearly the thematic representation of opening up to the world to a new perspective, is developed by the narrator actually closing his eyes and experiencing the "cathedral" through the blind man's experience of it is an example of a resurrection. (Hathcock 31-39) Raymond Carver Uses a variety of elements to render a theme that provides the readers with a sense that the narrator is an unpleasant human being, in need of change

Raymond Carver Cathedral Raymond Carver


In Cathedral, and in Cathedral only, we witness the rare moments of their comings out, a process of opening up in closed-down lives that comes across in both the subjects and events of the stories and in the process of their telling, where self-disenfranchisement is reflected even on the level of discourse, rhetorically or structurally, or both. (Nesset 116) The work clearly strikes a cord with many, as it is an aspect of repeated literary criticism

Raymond Carver\'s Short Story \"Cathedral\"


This person has all the reasons for being pessimistic, for expressing criticism concerning all people, and for generally considering that he needs to cling on to his possessions with all of his power. Instead, Robert "shows remarkable resilience" (Hunt 151) and makes it possible for readers to see a whole different attitude coming from Carver

Raymond Carver\'s Short Story \"Cathedral\"


By 'seeing' things from Robert's perspective the narrator abandons prejudice and gets actively involved in sympathizing with the blind man using all means available to him. "While at first it was the narrator who was in charge, drawing the cathedral on the heavy paper so that Robert could then move "the tips of his fingers over the paper" (227) to get some idea of what it looked like, by the time the story ends it's the blind man who is guiding the narrator, riding him with his fingers" (Runyon 184)

Raymond Carver\'s Short Story \"Cathedral\"


The narrator basically goes from being a resolute person to being someone who is touched significantly and who is unable to contain his emotions at the time when he realizes that his perspective on life is flawed. The fact that "Robert turns out to be a natural born confounder of stereotypes" (Saltzman 153) comes in disagreement with the narrator thinking style and is apparently meant to criticize stereotypes and criticism in general

Raymond Carver\'s Short Story \"Cathedral\"


He virtually did everything that he could with the purpose of providing for his family, but he eventually came to acknowledge his interest in literature. He attended Chico State College in 1958 and as a result of being supported by his teachers in pursuing his love for writing poetry he came to write a series of poems throughout the 1960s (Sklenicka 72)

Raymond Carver\'s \"Cathedral\" and \"Careful\"


"His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing in my life up to now (Carver, 1989, p

Raymond Carver\'s \"Cathedral\" and \"Careful\"


"His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing in my life up to now (Carver, 1989, p

Raymond Carver\'s \"Cathedral\" and \"Careful\"


.stories are about discourse itself, ways people communicate or fail to communicate, demonstrating consequences of various modes of discourse" (Champion, 1997, p

Raymond Carver\'s \"Cathedral\" and \"Careful\"


The husband of "Cathedral" rages against blindness, but enters the blind man's world through the medium of touch, even after he has tried to exclude the blind man by turning on the TV. What is particularly important for an analysis of Carver's narrative style is Hassan's description of the "anti-languages" silence in the story creates (Trussler, 1994, p

Cathedral - Raymond Carver About the Author


However, at the end of the story, the two hands moving together where one was showed by means of sight and the other not seemed to be a gesture of society. The story proved a gifted writer who struggled for a larger scope of reference, along with a better touch of shade (Irving, 1983)

Cathedral - Raymond Carver About the Author


They talked on into the early morning, the high pale cast of light in the windows, and they did not think of leaving." (Lonnquist)

Cathedral - Raymond Carver About the Author


Get us a pen and some heavy paper. Go on, bub, get the stuff" (226) (Saltzman, 1988)

Cathedral - Raymond Carver About the Author


However, the narrator tried to describe a cathedral in words but was not successful. Thus, the blind man held hand of the narrator as he draws a cathedral on a paper bag and developed experience of a successful communication that changed the narrator (Verley, 1989)