The Blind Husband In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

P5:1 “Blindness Removed in Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," a document written in English 1020 addresses false perceptions created by the media. This will need to be peer reviewed. In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” he writes about the effects of media and resulting perceptions and prejudices about blind people that are expressed through the narrator. The narrator has never met a blind person, but has seen examples of blind people in the movies that walk slowly, fail to laugh and use seeing-eye dogs (Carver 108-116). Likewise, the narrator has read that blind men are nonsmokers, but Robert seems to be like any other man who marries, has sex, smokes, eats and has a television on (Carver 108-116). A television program Robert and the narrator

In comparison, in “Cathedral” the narrator’s lack of vulnerability at this point of the story is beginning to be a problem, yet a beginning of a silver lining starts to show. From this point on forward in the story Husband and wife and the blind man are settling down, having a little bit of small talk and enjoying each other's company over some drinks. “I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled”(Guy)said the narrator, he states that because Robert was smoking, this clashes preconceived notions about blind people. After that they enjoyed a great dinner and all the while the narrator once again is enamored of how effortlessly the blind man can find

It is unclear whether or not the husband’s dislike for the blind man is fueled by jealousy or by ignorance. It is clear that the husband’s idea of what the company of a blind man would be like is very stereotypical because he bases his opinion on what he has seen in the movies, “In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed.” (Carver 473). The husband bases his judgment from movies and decides, “A blind man in my house was not something I was looking forward to.” (Carver 473).

In the narrative, the author writes the story in first person point of view through an unnamed narrator which enables the reader to visualize, experience, and perceive a deeper insight into his mind. The story commences with the narrator speaking directly to the audience appearing closed-off and narrow-minded. His wife has an old friend named Robert, who happens to be blind, coming to spend the night. Right away, the reader can sense how the narrator comes off as self-absorbed. He`s only concerned about how Robert’s visit will affect him and is inconsiderate about the strong bond Robert and his wife have built over the years. The narrator also lacks self-awareness when he found himself thinking “what a pitiful life this woman must have led.” (Carver 3) The woman being Beulah, Robert`s recently deceased wife, who the narrator belittled as she married a blind man and now she “could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.” (Carver 3) Not realizing that with

“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is a story that shows the sense of sight in relation to vision, but it shows that the sense of sight requires a much deeper engagement. The narrator, who Robert calls “Bub,” is astonishingly shortsighted or “blind” while the blind man is insightful and perceptive. Bub is not blind, but Robert is. Therefore, he assumes that he is superior to Robert. His assumption correlates with his idea that Robert is unable to make a female happy, nor is he able to have a normal life. Bub is convinced his ability to see is everything. So, he fails to look deeper than the surface and is why he doesn’t know his wife adequately. However, Robert sees much deeper than the narrator, although he cannot look at the surface. Robert’s ability to look deeper helps him understand through his listing and sense of touch. Throughout Robert’s visit, the narrator reveals he is closed minded and exposes how he views life in general. Bub is clobbered and it brings him to the epiphany that his views about Robert are actually a mirror image of how he views his life. His epiphany is shown through the author's use of appearance vs reality, irony, and vernacular dialogue; which shows Bub’s preconceived notations, the connection formed between Bub and Robert, and how out of obliviousness Bub gained insight.

The short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver follows the transformation of a young man, the speaker, who is naïve and thoughtless to a more appreciative and open hearted individual. This great change is brought about following the acquaintance of his wife’s friend Robert, who is physically blind though in touch with his surroundings and inner self. Robert and the speaker are opposing parallels, both blind but in differing ways. The theme of blindness and transformation is most prevalent and explored in the speaker as he changes following the meeting with Robert.

The narrator asks why Robert’s wife, Beulah, would marry him. The narrator fixated on the fact that Beulah “could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one” (Carver). This is the point in the story where the narrator is seen showing sympathy in a way towards Robert. While the narrator’s comments seem to come from a negative place, this is where he is beginning to open up to the idea of Robert. In the wording of his comments, the narrator says that he “felt sorry for the blind man”

And his prejudice with the blind man is because he’s projecting his unsure feelings about his wife, onto the blind man. He is unsure whether she loves him due to their lack of communication. And feels insecure because the blind man understands his wife better than him, and he is blind. So the narrator feels insecure because he can’t understand his wife’s emotions and needs, while the blind man can because she is so much happier around him. This leads to internal conflict and prejudice and blindness.

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” the narrator is seen to show ignorance and bias towards blindness throughout the story, however towards the end he realizes his flaws and the difference between looking and seeing. From the beginning of the story to the end you can see a change within the narrator after his encounter with the blind man. At the end of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” the narrator hopes to accomplish a change in his understanding of himself, and his experience with Robert flickers this change towards the end of the story.

In the story “Cathedral”, author, Raymond Carver, show the readers that a person does not need their eyes to see as sight has a deeper meaning for different people. Within the story, the narrator, husband, describe his experience with his wife’s longtime friend Robert, a blind man who came to visit after losing his own wife to cancer. The story takes place in the husband’s home somewhere in the East Coast near Connecticut. As the husband has a drink and waits for his wife’s arrival with Robert, the husband shows an uneasiness about Robert being blind. Upon their arrival, the husband notices how joyful and happy his wife is with Robert and does not understand why. Inside the home, the husband and Robert had a few drinks accompanied with light conversation until dinner where the husband is impressed at how the Robert can describe the foods there are eating. After the dinner, the husband leaves to the couch to watch T.V. The wife and Robert join the husband him shortly after. After the wife falls asleep on the couch, the husband stops on a channel where they speak of Cathedrals and the blind man want him to describe it. Unable to use descriptive word to help Robert see, Robert asks the husband to draw the Cathedral on a paper thick enough so Robert can feel the lines. Robert joins hands with the husband as he draws on the paper and begins to visualize what a cathedral looks like while the husband has an insight on how to see through the eyes of a blind person, so to speak. The

The husband in Raymond Carvers “Cathedral” wasn’t enthusiastic about his wife’s old friend, whom was a blind man coming over to spend the night with them. His wife had kept in touch with the blind man since she worked for him in Seattle years ago. He didn’t know the blind man; he only heard tapes and stories about him. The man being blind bothered him, “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to. (Carver 137)” The husband doesn’t suspect his ideas of blind people to be anything else. The husband is already judging what the blind man will be like without even getting to actually

In the beginning, the narrator was reluctant to allow the blind man to come to his house. The narrator’s perception about the blind man comes from the movies he saw, and this preconception influences the narrator’s contempt of the blind man in his house. For instance, the narrator says in the story that, “I was not

In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver which shows a narrators insight and reflection of himself by gaining better perspective and knowledge of Robert. At first the narrator's attitude towards Robert coming to visit his wife exhibits a lot of close-mindedness. He purely judges the fact that Robert is blind and how his only idea of blindness comes from “movies” (Carver 105). The narrator initially is fearful of meeting a blind man due to his experience of never meeting one. Before meeting Robert, the narrator and his wife get in a argument. The narrator goes on to say “I don’t have any blind friends”, which causes the wife to lash back to say “You don’t have any friends” (Carver

This seems to unsettle the husband, as he notices that his wife has a stronger connection with Robert than they have in their marriage. The husband is blind to his wife’s feelings and needs in their relationship, and this lack of communication between them has affected their marriage. His wife wrote a poem about her experience with the blind man touching her face, and he brushed it off by stating that, “[He] can remember not thinking much about the poem” (33). The blind man however acts as an outlet for the wife to vent about her feelings which forms a close bond between the two. Robert can understand the speaker’s wife in a way that the speaker clearly is not able to. The narrator mentions that he believes Robert’s wife, Beluah, must have led a miserable life because she, “could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loves one. A woman who could never go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved” (34). He believes that the blind man’s wife must have suffered due to his inability to see her, yet the narrator has never even truly seen his own wife. Robert’s friendship with the speaker’s wife is what his own marriage is lacking due to not being able to recognize that his wife needs an emotional connection with him.

In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the husband's view of blind men is changed when he encounters his wife's long time friend, Robert. His narrow minded views and prejudice thoughts of one stereotype are altered by a single experience he has with Robert. The husband is changed when he thinks he personally sees the blind man's world. Somehow, the blind man breaks through all of the husband's jealousy, incompetence for discernment, and prejudgments in a single moment of understanding.