Patience Over Prejudice: Raymond Carver's Cathedral

Patience over Prejudice: Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines a “bigot” as “a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc.” or “[one who] refuses to accept the members of a particular group”. The unnamed, male narrator of Raymond Carver’s short story, “Cathedral”, fits these definitions with near-perfect accuracy—at the start of the story, at least. Initially, the narrator is upset because his wife invites over an old friend as a new houseguest: an elderly Englishman named Robert, a former employer of hers. The story-teller is not upset because Robert is English, though. Instead, he is upset because Robert is blind, and—more specifically—because he doesn’t know any other blind people or

what to expect. The narrator has trouble relating to the blind man in his imagination, and, thus, he quickly develops an “unfair dislike” for this person whom he has never met.

The blind man, however, greets these preconceptions with patience and equanimity, and the end result is a profound realization for the story’s narrator. Throughout “Cathedral”, Raymond Carver employs characterization and purposeful diction to juxtapose the bigoted narrator against the wise blind man in order to advance the underlying theme of the story: persistent empathy and understanding are the forces to end prejudice.

Carver is able to establish this theme of empathy versus ignorance by creating two starkly different personalities. The narrator’s character is initially clueless; he is emotionally detached from his wife and friends, he asks absurd and impertinent questions of the visitor, and—worst of all—he is completely unaware of his ignorance. This last trait, the inability to so much as acknowledge an unfair predisposition, is the foundation of bigotry. Upon

hearing of the blind man’s pending visit, the narrator shares his thoughts on the individual: “his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed” (1). Even though the narrator admits that all of his knowledge of blind people comes exclusively from movies, where they are portrayed as “slow” and “never laugh”, he is still confident in his uninformed view. The narrator expands upon this assumption when he admits that “[a] blind man in [his] house was not something [he] looked forward to” (Carver 1). Without having actually knowing Robert—or any blind person for that matter—the narrator has already cast judgement on the situation and unfairly labels the visit a misfortune; this willing and baseless dismissal is a sure sign of a bigoted individual. When the narrator’s wife describes “a little about the blind man’s wife. Her name was Beulah” (3). Upon hearing such a name, the narrator’s instinctive reaction is racist in nature, as he exclaims: “Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman” (3). Again, the narrator displays his tendency towards hasty judgements and sweeping generalizations when he makes a definitive statement, that is actually an assumption, about the late woman’s ethnicity. Clearly, this is not yet a man who knows how to appreciate diversity amongst individuals.
Equally notable in the early characterization of the narrator is his near-complete lack of empathy for strangers and kin alike. While trying to imagine what Robert and Beulah’s wedding must have been like, the narrator asks, “It was a little wedding—who'd want to go to such a wedding in the first place?” (3). In an impressive display of ignorance and insensitivity, the narrator completely looks past the love and happiness that the couple must have shared in that moment with his disrespectful aside of, “who would even want to go?” It seems that even this character would be offended if the tables were turned and a hypothetical third party asked, “who would want to go to the narrator’s wedding?” However, lacking empathy, the condescending nature of the comment is lost on the character, as the narrator insinuates that no one in their right mind would enjoy such a ceremony. He is entirely unable to relate Robert and Beulah’s wedding to his own marriage, or perhaps he is unable to look back upon his own fondly. Either way, the narrator again displays his extreme inability to sympathize when he detachedly recounts the story of his wife’s attempted suicide: depressed from constant relocations and severed relationships, the narrator’s wife ingests a cocktail of gin and prescription medications, “[b]ut instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up” (2). Alarmingly, the narrator witnesses the ultimate cry for help from his spouse, whom he pledged to love and care for until the end of their days, and—in the end—all he can extract from the incident is that, “she got sick,” and “[s]he threw up.” He sees this most desperate act from the person he should love above all else, and he downplays the attempt on her own life as a bout of nausea. Again, the narrator displays his inability (rather than unwillingness) to empathize, and this time it is with the person he should most readily be able to relate to.
Since the story’s protagonist, the narrator, begins firmly entrenched in his close-minded thinking, how is the antagonist, Robert the blind man, able to enlighten him by story’s end? Robert’s character is painted as the compassionate mirror-opposite to the narrator; where the narrator is bigoted, assuming, and emotionally detached, Robert is shown to be boundlessly patient, amiable, and understanding. The contrast is displayed quite readily when their interactions begin. In a rather vapid attempt at small talk, the narrator asks Robert, “‘Did you have a good train ride? … Which side of the train did you sit on?’” (4). Despite the narrator’s wife pointing out the absurdity of the inquiry, Robert fields it in stride: “‘Right side,’ the blind man said” (5). Robert acknowledges the tension between the narrator and his wife, so he diffuses it with a cordial answer before neatly changing the subject. Robert easily could have sided with the wife in this matter, and ostracized the narrator for his ridiculous question, but he decides instead, graciously, to be patient and attempts to make everyone feel comfortable. It is precisely this empathetic grace that the narrator is so badly missing. Later in the story, at the dinner table, the stark contrast of personalities is shown again when Robert tries to interview the narrator: “From time to time, he'd turn his blind face toward me...[and] ask me something. How long had I been in my present position? (Three years.) Did I like my work? (I didn't.) Was I going to stay with it? (What were the options?)” (7). Here Robert seems to be reaching out to the narrator in an attempt to start a friendship, or at least to get to know him better. While Robert the blind man previously replied to the trite question of train-orientation with a warm and leading response, the narrator does precisely the opposite. Robert gives him an opportunity to open up about his own interests and passions, and the narrator replies only with curt negativity before leaving the table to watch television.
Seeming almost challenged by his host’s reserved state, Robert persists with patience, kindness, and warmth.

Even after the wife, Robert’s pen pal, goes to sleep, Robert offers to the narrator that “I'll stay up with you, bub. If that's all right. I'll stay up until you're ready to turn in” (9). Robert keeps making himself available to the narrator, extending proverbial olive branch by sharing of scotch and cannabis—the narrator’s pastimes—late into the night. Gradually but effectively, Robert’s way of thinking influences the narrator, culminating in a transformation of perspective for the protagonist. While there is some foreshadowing of the narrator’s empathetic development when he “[feels] sorry for the blind man a little bit” and “[watches] with admiration as [Robert] used his knife and fork” (3, 6), the narrator’s real breakthrough comes when the pair begin to watch a television program about cathedrals. Coming to a spontaneous—and empathetic—realization, the narrator asks of Robert: “Something has occurred to me. Do you have any idea what a cathedral is? What they look like, that is? ... If somebody says cathedral to you, do you have any notion what they're talking about?” (10). It occurs to the narrator that if he had no vision himself (like Robert), then he may not know what a cathedral looked like. This is the first moment where the narrator empathizes with Robert in a meaningful way, when he imagines himself in Robert’s shoes. Soon after, the two share an

endearing moment together by trying to draw a cathedral. In gathering supplies, the narrator again displays his new capacity for empathy when he “[tries] to think where to look for the kind of paper [Robert] was talking about” (12). Although this instance is more subtle, the narrator is beginning to think what sort of paper would be useful if he himself were blind. Putting yourself in someone else’s perspective is the root of empathetic thinking, and the narrator’s consideration here shows just how far he has come.
The development of the protagonist is complete, it would seem, by the end of the story. While they are drawing, Robert instructs the narrator to close his eyes, before the unnamed man admits to himself that “[i]t was like nothing else in my life up to now...I thought I’d keep [my eyes closed] for a little longer...it was something I ought to do...I was in my house…[b]ut I didn’t feel like I was inside anything” (13). Possibly encouraged by a drug- and alcohol-induced stupor, the narrator seems to reach an epiphany of sorts. Not only does he appeal to the heightened, moral sense of “ought”, but the narrator also tries to experience—tries to feel—life as a blind person, even if only briefly. The fact that he has transitioned from initially shunning this blind stranger he’d had never met to envisioning himself seeing the world just as Robert does serves to confirm the narrator’s progress.
While an argument can be made that the narrator’s transformation is only temporary, the product of mind-altering substances, the development of the character seems to imply that it really was a profound and meaningful realization. It seemed in the start that the narrator had no capacity for empathetic understanding, rather than no interest in it. His world was as simple and plain as the assumptions he made, or the movies he watched about it, and his inability to dig past those assumptions is what compromised the quality of his marriage and personal life. Ultimately, Robert’s unrelenting kindness and warmth was able to whittle away at the narrator’s emotional barrier. The narrator gradually realized that his prejudiced assumptions of blind people did not seem to fit Robert well, and that granted him a profound experience “like nothing else in [his] life up to now.” Thanks mainly to Robert’s patience and kind persistence, the narrator—who began with a strong but baseless dislike for blind people—was able to make a new friend while simultaneously growing out of his bigoted disposition. This is analogous to a larger society, where only steady and patient influences of empathy and understanding can overcome the shameful ignorance that is prejudice and bigotry.