The Liberation Of The Heart By Raymond Carver - 1770 Words

Blindness does not merely limit itself to the eyes: it can plague the most profound depths of the heart as well. When a man closes off one of the most vital veins to his heart, compassion, he too can find himself lost in the bleak and somber tundra of mere existence. The liberation of the heart is a liberation which some cannot easily attain. In many instances, the heart may require an influence or spark that revives the compassion that is lacking. In Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral,† the author takes this notion of intervention and demonstrates it through the tale of a vulgar and callous man who seems to lack even the slightest amount of compassion for anyone. The man appears to have no friends, no direction in life, and he most certainly has no filter. These claims become apparent throughout the beginning of the story and towards the middle when the man speaks of an expected visitor, Robert, his wife’s old friend who happens to be blind, and brutally launches his narrow-minded prejudices towards the old man. The story presents an ironic twist as the reader begins to realize that despite the blind man’s disability, he appears to have a far greater sense of vision than the narrator and is even somewhat successful in kindling a newly found compassion within the heart of the narrator. One would believe that a man with sight would find it less tasking to communicate and connect with those around him than one without sight, but in this particular story the reader discovers thatShow MoreRelatedIrony in the Story of an Hour and Araby2929 Words   |  12 Pagessocially accepted at the end of the 19th century. This is the story of Mrs. Mallard, a woman with a heart condition who finds out her husband has died in a train accident. She reacts with sadness at first, but after seeking solitude, realizes that she is free. She is ready to begin her new life when her husband, who was not involved in the train accident, comes home alive. The woman dies from heart failure on the spot. The purpose of irony in Kate Chopins The Story of an Hour is to convey a messageRead More Raymond Carvers Cathedral Essay6977 Words   |  28 Pagesquot;The Compartment,quot; one of Raymond Carvers bleakest stories, a man passes through the French countryside in a train, en route to a rendevous w ith a son he has not seen for many years. quot;Now and then,quot; the narrator says of the man, quot;Meyers saw a farmhouse and its outbuildings, everything surrounded by a wall. He thought this might be a good way to live-in an old house surrounded by a wallquot; (Cathedral 48). Due to a last minute change of heart, however, Meyers chooses to stayRead MoreRastafarian79520 Words   |  319 Pagesganja-smoking illiterates who were of no value to society. Teachers, students, ofï ¬ ce workers, and anyone of social importance could not grow locks, and families would go into mourning when their sons would start sprouting them. I heard the term â€Å"black heart man† used again and again as a means of expressing fear or ridicule of the Rastafarian. And this was in the early 1970s—after Bob Marleys emergence as an international viii FOREWORD star, after Selassies arrival in Jamaica, and after