Analysis Of The Blind Man By Raymond Carver

Carver progresses the narrator’s tone throughout the story, from disdainful to cautious to introspective by developing his relationship with Robert, and forcing them to interact with each other, to express that false presumptions about strangers, based on someone else’s experience or stories, can be misleading.

In the beginning the narrator’s tone is derisive, as though he’s mocking Robert’s being blind. The narrator sees Robert as a nuisance, getting in the way of him and his wife, whose past relationships with Robert and other men seem to irritate the narrator. “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed…A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to,” (Carver 1). The narrator is inexperienced

because he’s never experienced a blind person in the flesh, which leads him to place Robert under a variety of disingenuous characteristics that he learned from society.

Carver portrays the narrator as someone who doesn’t have much experience with the blind and who doesn’t feel inclined to have that experience. The narrator also alludes to a past relationship between his wife and an army officer. “Her officer – why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want? – came home from somewhere, found her, and called the ambulance,” (Carver 2). Carver adds this flashback to show that the narrator is upset about his wife’s past romantic relationships and suspects that Robert was one of them. For example, the narrator says, “- why should he have name?” which portrays his anger towards the idea of his wife with another man. When describing the story of Robert and his wife the narrator sees their relationship as a little strange,

which contributes to the anxious but cantankerousness tone of the story before Robert arrives. The narrator’s inexperience with the blind and the irritation that builds up when discussing his wife’s previous relationships, both factors contribute to the apprehensively frustrated tone of the beginning of the story.
Robert, the blind man arrives at the narrator’s house and immediately the narrator’s tone shifts from scornful to tentative because the narrator didn’t want to say or do anything that may offend Robert. “ ‘I feel like we’ve already met,’ he boomed. ‘Likewise,’ I said. I didn’t know what else to say. Then I said, ‘Welcome. I’ve heard a lot about you,’ ” (Carver 4). As soon as Robert walks in the door the narrator is at a loss for words and repeats himself, showing his nervousness around blind people. The narrator assumes the worst for Robert, seeing his wife’s relationship with Robert as creepy and unorthodox, which taints his perception of him before they even meet. The narrator’s tentativeness continues when he changes the television channel to something he thinks Robert might not like. “I wanted to watch something else. I turned to the other channels. But there was nothing on them, either. So I turned back to the first channel and apologized,” (Carver 9). The narrator apologizes for something as small as changing the channel, hoping that it didn’t offend or anger Robert, continuing the anxious ambience of the middle of the story. The narrator doesn’t know how to act around Robert because he’s never been around someone like him and the author of the story uses this event to show that Robert and the narrator are more alike than the narrator believes in the beginning. After this encounter between Robert and the narrator the feeling of the story changes and the narrator’s opinion of Robert begins to develop an experiential meaning, as opposed to his previous knowledge of blind people.
The narrator’s tone changes from cautious to thoughtful as Robert and the narrator spend more time together and connect through the Medieval churches being shown the television. They begin to draw a cathedral, with Robert leading the narrator and eventually aiding him physically and connecting on a deeper level. Since Robert can’t see he tells the narrator to close his eyes, bringing them closer by using images only from within and not the outside world. “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything. ‘It’s really something,’ I said,” (Carver 13). The narrator begins to think like Robert and through this simple task they truly connect. The drawing of the cathedral drew Robert and the narrator closer and it made the narrator think about Robert and how being blind doesn’t mean he can’t really see. This deep connection that Carver develops between Robert and the narrator makes it seem as though the narrator begins to appreciate him instead of being hesitant or contemptuous. The author draws the connection between Robert and the narrator to prove that strangers are more than they seem and that judging someone based on previous knowledge or what others say can be very different from a personal experience. The narrator’s experience with blind people is almost nonexistent and many of his assumptions come from glorified and dramatized movies that misrepresent the blind and lead to the awkward encounter of Robert and the narrator. As the narrator and Robert spent more time together the narrator realizes that his presumptions about the blind are wrong and they’re the same as normal people except that they see things differently. The author connects the narrator and Robert by using the cathedral drawing, Robert’s vision of the cathedral is the same as the narrator and they connect deeply and realize they’re more similar than the narrator thought.
The narrator of the story makes an assumption about Robert but as Carver transforms the narrator’s tone from condescending to wary to considerate that previous perception proves to be wrong. The narrator’s expression of anger about his wife’s past relationships with an ex-husband and then with Robert gave him a negative opinion about Robert, but as the story progressed his view changed. Carver expresses how a perception about a stranger, someone has in his or her mind, can be misleading as to what the stranger is truly like through the shift in the narrator’s tone throughout the story.