Tone, Diction, And Narration Of Carver s Cathedral

Alex Ramsbottom Dr. Vella 16 October 2015 AP English 4 Tone, Diction, and Narration of Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral† First-person narration can provide an exotic and perhaps unreliable viewpoint. The narrator’s thoughts and feelings are conveyed more clairvoyantly than possible in third or even second person, an effect that develops a more intimate and relevant story to the reader. In Cathedral, Raymond Carver uses conversational tone and diction to expose the narrator s character: prejudicial at first, sympathetic by the end. Knowing his character simplifies the understanding of major components of the story such as the narrator s hostility to Robert and his epiphany at the end. Carver portrays the personality of the narrator in Cathedral in his use of conversational and colloquial tone. Carver’s syntactic maneuvers deliver a tone that is mocking, unpleasant and even vitriolic. He hyphenates the narrator’s interjections to convey a sarcastic quality of the narrator. For example: as the narrator is describing the sensitive situation of Beulah’s death, he does so with a taste of wickedness: After they had been inseparable for eight years--my wife s word, inseparable--Beulah’s health went into rapid decline (Norton 30). The hyphenation permits the narrator to present his hostility and mockery into any part of the story; thus, the narrator feels that his opinions and asides are more important than the plot. Throughout the story, he displays a dislike for many seemingly