Bub Symbolism In Cathedral

Raymond Carvers Cathedral presents an isolated narrow minded individual who narrates his experience with his wife’s old friend and the realization that occurs during the encounter with the blind man named Robert. Bub is emotionally isolated but enlightened by Roberts wisdom and comes to find spiritual freedom. Carver suggests that spiritual and emotional connection to life is directly correlated with the way life is perceived.

Bub, the protagonist in the story, has no emotional attachment to anything but himself. The narrator is not “enthusiastic” (184) about the idea of the blind man visiting. It seems as if he feels a little jealous towards his wife and Roberts relationship, thinking maybe it goes deeper than just sending tapes back in

forth. Bub does not care to listen to their latest tape until being told it involves him. Lucky enough for him the tape gets interrupted right before hearing what Robert has to say about him, Bub didn’t mind this and said, “We didn’t ever get back to the tape. Maybe it was just as well. I’d heard all I wanted to” (185). The narrator tends to criticize others but doesn’t want to hear criticism about himself. Bub is prejudice towards the blind man before his experience with him and pictures the blind “from the movies” (184). After finally meeting the blind man the two of them are forced to create conversation. As the story continues, he starts to realize that he enjoys Roberts’s company after Robert decides he will stay up in talk since they haven’t gotten a chance to know each other yet, the narrator responds, “I’m glad for the company” (190). The mocking prayer that Bub prays before dinner leads Robert to question Bub if he is religious. The narrator replies to this question with “I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything” (192). He begins to connect with this blind man that ironically is here for the wife.
For a blind man Robert seems to be able to “see” everything. Robert and the wife’s relationship for the past 10 years before visiting had only consist of sending tapes back and forth to each other. Robert was once a happily married man before his wife died of cancer. The “half of twenty-peso Mexican coin” he was left with leads me to believe his wife was of Mexican descent. He never even saw what she looked like but loved her. Sight to him I more than just physically seeing.
The blind man and the wife had a strange relationship. It begins when she starts reading to him but escalates into something more. Before leaving the job of reading to Robert he asks if he can touch her face and she agrees. She told her husband that “he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose—even her neck!” (184). This part of the story is unclear to me but leaves me wondering if something more than that happened. She seems to resort to writing poems and sending tapes to the blind man to talk about her emotions. Seemingly because her husband does not care.
As the wife lies asleep on the couch the blind man and Robert are left talking and watching television.

A show about church and The Middle Ages is playing. They begin to show a cathedral on the tv and the blind man asks Bub to describe one to him because he doesn’t know what one is. When Bub struggles to describe the cathedral Robert has the idea of drawing one together. Robert instructs Bub to “get us some pen and some heavy paper” (192). As the two men draw the cathedral Bub first draws a box with a roof which represents his current outlook. Robert said to Bub “Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you bub?” (193). his signifies a change is taking place. The narrator is experiencing something new; he is making a connection. As the drawing continues the blind man tells Bub to close his eyes, so he does. However when Robert tells him to open his eyes and “take a look” (193) he keeps them closed. The epiphany comes after Robert asks Bub if he is looking. “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,” I said.” (193). Bub finds that he is seeing life in another way. A way that is not just limited to himself. The blind man that he once judged ironically taught him how to see. Perhaps the cathedral is used to lift Bub closer to “sight” just as its purpose to lift people closer to

God.