Raymond Carver Cathedral Essay

In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator creates a connection with the blind man. He not only overcomes stereotypes, but also conquers his own blindness to the world around him. His whole perspective of blind men changes when he is told to close his own eyes and draw a cathedral with Robert (the blind man), therefore leading him to overcome his own “blindness”.

As “Cathedral” begins, the narrator speaks in a very conversational tone, he starts showing signs of his own blindness when he doesn’t understand why his wife writes poems. He says, “I didn’t think much of the poem. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. Maybe I just don’t understand poetry” (200). He continues his misunderstandings with other concepts such as believing in religion

in which he states “ ‘I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything. Sometimes it’s hard” (209). He also extends these thoughts of nonreligion and goes on to say “‘The truth is, cathedrals don’t mean anything special to me. Nothing cathedrals. They’re just something to look at on late-night TV. That’s all they are” (209). These statements show the narrator's non-interest in the ideas anybody else would consider being apart of about or having a passion in.
The narrator’s “blindness” carries on to his stereotyping of blind men, Robert in particular.

He starts out by only referring to Robert as “the blind man” (201). not even giving him a proper title or name, rather giving him just what he is simply known for (being blind). This shows that to the narrator Robert is nothing more than just a handicapped man rather than a person. The narrator starts by creating a stereotype of blind men always having to wear glasses to cover their eyes. He says “But he didn’t use a cane and didn’t wear glasses. I’d always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wished he had a pair” (203). This not only shows his assumption of blind men having to wear glasses but also how he wishes that the blind man would wear glasses because of his own discomfort. He also creates a stereotype that blind men don’t smoke, he states, “ I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled...but this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one” (204). Displaying that there was yet another assumption of the narrator’s that was proven incorrect by the blind man himself. Such assumptions continue throughout the story with his shock of how Robert has two televisions as well as how the blind man “right away located his foods” and how “he [the blind man] knew just where everything was on his plate” (204). Such actions by the blind man impressed the narrator because throughout most the story he never see’s past the fact that Robert is

blind.
Although it may seem that the narrator has stuck with his stubborn ways of creating his own stereotypes of blind men, he later warms up to Robert and is open to learn what it’s really like being a blind man. The narrator later starts switching from “the blind man” to finally calling him Robert, “ my wife heaped Robert’s plate with cube steak” (204). This shows how he slightly got more comfortable with having a blind man in his house. Despite the fact that he still calls Robert “the blind man” from time to time, he still made a slight transformation when deciding to call him by his real name, not by his disability. The major turning point in the narrator's mindset is when he asks Robert “if he wanted to smoke some dope with me” (205). This shows a new contentment with having Robert with him, this eventually leads to the narrator attempting to describe a cathedral in which he has a very hard time doing so. The very moment the narrator sees Robert as a person and not someone with a disability is when he is drawing a cathedral with Robert and is told to close his eyes. “ ‘close your eyes now,’ the blind man said to me. I did it. I closed them just like he said… ‘don’t stop now. Draw.’ So we kept on with it” (210). The narrator keeping his eyes closed and obeying Robert shows a new level of trust between the blind man and himself. In other situations one might open their eyes out of curiosity or not trusting the other person, but the narrator put trust into the blind man and showed this by keeping his eyes closed. The narrator continues to keep his eyes closed even when Robert allows him to open them, “‘take a look. What do you think?’ But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer.I thought it was something I ought to do… ‘It’s really something,’ I said” (210). This final line in the story represents the narrator's eyes finally being opened, in the sense that he finally understands that being blind doesn’t make someone any less of a person.