Carver's Cathedral

Carver's Cathedral

  • Submitted By: alb624
  • Date Submitted: 11/18/2008 5:45 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 726
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 1

    How does Carver use symbolization to show how people can have preconceptions?  In Carver’s “ Cathedral” the main character, Robert is a symbol for how stereotypical preconceptions of people can alter your views toward people. As we first are introduced to the husband and he is informed that his wife’s friend, Robert, is coming to stay with them, he was very skeptical. After knowing he was blind he thought of all the stereotypical blind people he had seen in movies or on the TV. He doesn’t understand how someone who is blind will be able to fly by himself from the West Coast, where Robert lives, to where he lives in Connecticut. He was amazed when hearing that Robert had a wife that passed away. He didn’t believe that they had true love because Robert could never see her facial expressions. Carver explains “They’d married, lived and worked together, slept together--had sex, sure--and then the blind man had to bury her. All this without ever seeing what the goddamned woman looked like”. The Husband knew some things about Robert, from what his wife had told him. His wife was very fond of Robert, after working with him for a summer. Shortly after Robert arrived, they had dinner. The husband did not even think Robert was capable of cutting his own food because of his disability. Robert lit a cigarette, and the husband was surprised. Carver writes “ I remembered having read something that the blind didn’t smoke because as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled…I thought I knew that much and that much only about blind people”.                    2 The three of them sat on the couches after dinner in disgust of how much food they consumed. As the news played Robert and the wife were talking about the old times. The husband didn’t know what to say because he wasn’t sure if Robert would still notice if he was even still in the room. When the wife left, it was just Robert and the husband. The husband didn’t want to be left alone with Robert because...

Similar Essays