Cathedral Raymond Cavers Analysis

In Raymond Cavers “Cathedral” the idea of vision, at first is that Robert is a blind man, he physically cannot see, and the narrator is bothered by that. But as the story progresses we realize that the idea of vision has a deeper meaning then we first interpreted.

Although the narrator is physically able to see he his blind mentally and spiritually. Even though Robert is truly blind physically it seems as if the narrator is more blind then Robert. The narrator’s ignorance is what ultimately makes him blind. In the beginning of the story the narrator’s idea of blind people blinded him. He didn’t view blind people as normal people which is why he continuously called Robert the “blind man” instead of referring to him by his name. The narrators only impression of blind people is what he learned from a movie. For example, the narrator states “In the

While the narrator tells us about his wife’s past we see his insecurities. When referring to his wife 's ex-husband he says, "Her officer- why should he have a name? He was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?” (436). This shows how the narrator is insecure as he calls the ex-husband the “Officer”. He doesn’t give us the name of his wife’s ex-husband. The reason why is because the narrator is denying others importance. By doing this the narrator is trying to make himself seem more important by making others not seem important. Which is a factor to his blindness. The narrator’s impoliteness is a major factor of him being blind. The narrator goes on a rant about Roberts wife and how pathetic she must have felt when she died, because she died knowing the fact that Robert never knew what she looked like. As the story proceeded we learned to dislike the narrator as he was rude towards most the characters in this story. He doesn’t even give us his wife’s name. He blames Robert for many things before he even meets