Compare and contrast the concept of imagination in Raymond Carver`s story `Cathedral` and Richard Wilbur`s poem `The .`

IMAGINATION AND IMAGINING IN THE WRITER AND CATHEDRAL

The imagination is powerful - it is what makes all progress possible and it is what separates humans from other living creatures . With the imagination we can conceive things and from there create things . Thus creativity begins and ends with the imagination . In Raymond Carver 's story Cathedral ' and Richard Wilbur 's The Writer , the concept of imagination is present , and in this I will discuss how it is present in the two works . Both works deal with a lot of imagining on the part

of the protagonist and the persona - the I ' in Cathedral narrates the story sharing his thoughts and perceptions , of the way he imagines things to be the I ' in the The Writer ' on the other hand , imagines the creative struggle his daughter is going through , the creative struggle being in itself a struggle within the imagination

In Cathedral , readers are presented with only three characters , the story told in the point of view of the main character who remained unnamed all throughout . The story centers on the arrival of the protagonist 's wife 's friend , Robert , who is a blind man . From the main character 's tone , we can already infer that he is uneasy with this visit , and when he does meet Robert he shares his stereotypical view of a blind man , and how Robert does not fit this image , and how he wished Robert wore glasses at least to conceal his eyes . The main character also has a lot of imaginings and opinions - about Beulah , Robert 's wife for example . The main character imagines that Beulah must have led a miserable life having been married to a blind man , because he thought , a blind man cannot give his wife the smallest compliments about how she looks among other things . Ironically , when Robert asks him to describe a cathedral , the main character finds it difficult to do so , even though he has just been watching a show featuring all kinds of cathedrals from all over the world . Robert then asks him to draw with him - and he did It was at that moment that the main character was forced to look at what is really a cathedral and imagine it so he could construct it on In doing so , in letting the blind man 's hand ride his , the main character 's presumptions begin to melt as he is forced to open his eyes and see clearly from within . I think the concept of imagination here is present not only in terms of how we perceive and see things , as the characters in the story portray . But more importantly , I think the presence of imagination in this story is most felt as the story ends when the main character closes his eyes and continues to draw , because at this point the reader is taken in by the story and asked to imagine for himself what happens next . This story does not impose a moral , or...