Theme and narrative in literary analysis

Carver

A Different Kind of Seeing

In "Cathedral," Raymond Carver explores multiple ways of human seeing through the strained interactions between a prejudiced but sighted man and an open minded but blind man. Carver uses several literary elements to convey the central theme exploring multiple modes of perception and understanding. For example, characterization defines the boundaries and relationships between characters and therefore allows the theme of blindness to emerge. The point-of-view of the story encourages the reader to identify with, and thus understand, the first person narrator. Symbolism also permeates "Cathedral," and enables the irony of blindness to be conveyed to the reader. Each of these literary elements work together to convey the central theme of multiple modes of seeing, knowing, and understanding.

Strong characterization, coupled with a first person narrator, help convey they theme of multiple modes of seeing. The narrator and his wife are central characters but remain unnamed, as if Carver wants to detract from their egos and focus the story on Robert. Robert and his wife Beulah remain the only named characters, offering them a more well formed identity than the narrator has. The notion that prejudice blinds people is also carried out in the meaning of Beulah's name, which to the narrator sounds African-American. Although he has never met her -- seen her, the narrator has prejudged her. Similarly, the narrator has never met Robert of seen him but has in his head a whole set of preconceptions ranging from his shock that Robert does not wear dark glasses to the fact that he has a beard.

Symbolism is one of the main literary techniques Carver employs to convey the nuanced theme that human perception is formed from the mind and not the sense organs. The sense of touch is explored throughout the story, manifest in multiple ways. For example, the narrator's wife and Robert had "kept in touch" over the years, the narrator reminds himself over and over again. Feelings are also explored as emotions, not as feeling sensation on the skin. For instance, in the wife's poem, "she talked about what she had felt at the time, about what went through her mind when the blind man touched her nose and lips." The touching of the nose and lips is juxtaposed against the touching of emotions. Finally, the narrator achieves his epiphany via the sense of touch directly at the end of the story when Robert guides his hand towards a new level of insight. The narrator is literally and figuratively touched.

Finally, the literary elements converge to create irony. After all, the blind man possesses greater insight into the human condition than a sighted man. The blind man intuitively knows that the television is color instead of black and white -- not because he can see it with his eyes but because of what he senses from being around his hosts. The narrator's prejudices about the world are formed in spite of him being able to see perfectly well with his eyes. It is his mind that is blind, and for Robert the opposite is true. Irony also emerges in other ways in "Cathedral," such as the narrator feeling jealous about Robert but not towards the "officer," the wife's nameless ex-husband. The spiritual awakening the narrator experiences related to drawing a cathedral at the end of the story has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity or religiosity.