James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" and Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" are two stories that highlight several similarities regarding thematic issues and usage of various stylistic devices. Studying the two stories closely helps the reader gain an essential understanding of the issues raised such as the internal and external conflicts affecting the characters. Although the plots of the two stories are different, their development in terms of characterization, style and themes is more or less the same as there are notable similarities. This gives the reader a good platform to look deeper into the conscious aspects embedded in the two, thus creating cohesion, coherence and understanding the stories more easily. The two stories through the narrator's point of view highlighted the characters' internal conflicts and their various misconceptions towards other characters as individuals and the overall worlds in which they live. For starters, the two stories are told from the narrators' point of view. whose names are casually kept anonymous to the reader throughout the stories. This is an aspect that creates the narrator as a character who is struggling to not only find his own identity and understand himself, but also exposes the difficulties he faces when trying to understand and relate to other characters. For example, in the story "The Cathedral" you can see how the narrator has various misconceptions about his wife and Robert. “In the movies, blind people moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by blind dogs.” From this statement you can see that the narrator had various misconceptions about Robert based on the stereotypes he had acquired from watching the movies. In the story 'Sonny's Blues'... middle of paper... and 'Sonny's Blues' are two stories that similarly addressed the issues of internal and interpersonal conflicts that most people experience in their daily lives live using ideas mistakes of the two different narrators about the other characters. Through these narrators directly involving themselves in the worlds of their rivals they eventually come to understand the reality of the situation, rather than continuing to live in their own worlds which have imprisoned them psychologically. Although the two stories have two different plots, the narrators experience relatively similar personal and interpersonal struggles. Ultimately, the two stories have a similar message: unless one steps out of one's own world and into that of others, one will always remain a prisoner and have difficulty understanding and relating to those closely related to one...