Analysis Of Raymond Carver s The Yellow Wallpaper

Raymond Carver’s Cathedral tells the story of a husband whose wife’s blind friend comes to spend the night. The husband and the blind man spend quality time together by watching historical programs about cathedrals on television. Since the blind man cannot see the cathedrals that the program discusses, the husband attempts to describe them to him. The husband fails to describe the cathedral to the blind man in an affective manner. Throughout the story, the husband goes on a journey to understanding why his attempt to describe the cathedral, failed. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper tells the story of a wife who is bored on her summer vacation. The wife spends time in a bedroom, journaling throughout the entire trip. She becomes intrigued by the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom, and goes on a journey to discover what is abnormal about the wallpaper. The husband in Cathedral and the wife in The Yellow Wallpaper go on a journey to discover more about th emselves through a three-step process of acknowledging a problem exists, imagining what the problem could be, and understanding the problem on a psychological level. The husband’s and wife’s views of fantasy versus reality show how their perceptions of themselves are made clear through their lack of understanding of the blind man and the wallpaper. The husband starts off the story by discussing a friend of his wife, who is coming to spend the night at their home. The wife’s friend is blind, and the husband has never