Cathedral

3 Pages 789 Words

The narrator in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” has two fully functional eyes, in which he chooses never to use to their full potential. They eyes of the narrator are insecure, jealous, lonely, and prejudiced. They are limited in what they choose to see. The tone of the narrator conveys his inability to see throughout the entire story. The narrator’s tone also reveals his character and personality.
The first few pages of the story reveal the narrator’s blurred view of his own life, his wife’s life, and the entire world around him. The reader is quick to discover that the narrator seems to have an unhappy and insecure outlook on life. The narrator’s blurred view of everything that happened in his wife’s life reveals the insecurity that plagues him. When referring to his wife’s ex-husband he says, “Her officer—why should he have a name? He was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?”(pg225). BY treating everyone the same and denying them importance, the narrator is trying to make himself seem more important in the lives of others. He simply calls his wife’s first husband “the officer” or “the man”(pg224). His refusal to even use his wife’s name while narrating as well as constantly referring to Robert as “the blind man”(pg224). Shows he blocks the importance of people around him. The narrator chooses not to be like Robert at first because of his disability. The narrator is aggravated and insecure about the fact that his wife talks and writes that she allowed Robert to touch her face. “She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose—even her neck”(pg224)! Because of the fact that his wife is so close to Robert, and is so happy in the event of his arrival, “I saw my wife laughing”(pg227), “She was still wearing a smile”(pg227P, is makes it easier for him to judge Robert according to his disability.
The reader first learns of the narrato...