The State Of Blindness In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

The blind man had to learn how to see beauties without his eyes. While he had mastered this, the narrator had a difficult time learning how to do it. When he finally gets it, he has an epiphany and realizes that “[i]t’s really something”(136). Another reason why the cathedral is a symbol is because it is a place of communion. When Robert and the narrator drew the picture together, touching hands, and placing themselves in each other’s shoes, they shared a bond.

Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, Raymond Carver use point of view effectively and demonstrates symbolism. The story begins with the blind man. He is visiting an old friend and her husband after his wife recently died. The story is told from the husband’s point of view. The story being told from the husband’s point of view is important.

In the story, the narrator’s narrow mindset is challenged over and over again as Robert breaks most stereotypes that the narrator held. As these stereotypes are broken, the narrator begins to feel more comfortable with Robert, and sincerely tells him that he is “glad for the company”. This release from prejudice culminates in the cathedral drawing scene of the story, where the narrator finally lets go of his bias towards blind people. Once the narrator closes his eyes, he is seemingly equal to Robert, and he consequently begins to understand Robert’s perspective. His newfound empathy towards Robert demonstrates how he has lost his prejudice towards him.

After, reading the story the reader can interpret that the truly blind person was the narrator himself. When the narrator finally puts his insecurities aside he actually starts to communicate with Robert the blind man. The story “Cathedral” shows various scenes of prejudgment, jealously, and indifference between the narrator and Robert. The story showed me that sometimes people shouldn’t judge by the exterior of people because in the interior they might have much more riches than

Throughout the story the reader can affirm that the wife has a deep, strong relationship with the blind man. The wife and the blind man share an intimate and vulnerable moments together; one includes when she lets him touch her face so he can remember her. Similarly, the narrator gets to share an intimate moment with Robert that leads to an epiphany. The epiphany that the narrator experiences when drawing a cathedral refers to seeing life from Robert, the blind man’s, point of view and seeing the struggles as well as life experiences a blind man must encounter on a daily basis.

Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that the characters do not. Dramatic and situational irony appear throughout a few of Carver’s numerous remarkable short stories. Cathedral by Raymond Carver is the story about a blind man, Robert, who visits a husband and wife in their home. One would expect the husband to be able to see more than the blind man, but ironically this is not the case. The husband who is also the narrator can physically see, but figuratively can not.

The English dictionary defines blindness as “The state or condition of being unable to see because of injury, disease, or a congenital condition”. In terms of Shakespeare, the word takes on a completely different meaning: Blindness is not a physical disability, but rather a mental flaw.(SP 3) In King Lear by Shakespeare, Lear, as well as other major characters including Gloucester and Albany, portray this theme. Derived from their blindness, each character makes decisions which they go on to regret; nevertheless, they learn from their actions as well.(SP 1A). King Lear is the beholder of great power is expected to “see” through all that is not good; however, his lack of “sight” prevents him from doing so.(SP 1A). His blindness surfaces when he is lured

According to Samuel Butler, "A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog, but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide. " There is no one as blind as an individual who will not see. Individuals who pay no attention to what they already know are the most deluded. In King Lear, blindness is a reoccurring theme, and this quote connects to the protagonist, Lear, who is not physically blind, but is blind in a sense that he lacks understanding and careful judgement. It is only when Lear goes mad and experiences an immense breakdown does he finally realize his mistakes.

The speaker goes inside, this means that the incident’s effort is affecting his inner emotional life and memory. Once he’s inside, the speaker describes the weather while inside as dead calm, but he is actually describing his own emotions. He hangs the cobweb to his lampshade implying he is a thoughtful and tender man. The speaker uses the cobweb as an object to meditate from and can be used as symbol for his life. Then something shocking happens, he proceeds to predict his own death “Before long, before anyone realizes, I’ll be gone from here” (Carver1).

To effectively understand and be aware of the underlying patterns of life in a culture one has to either get immersed into said culture and directly experience it or take some time to observe it. I therefore undertook to observe a wedding ceremony whose reception was set in the gardens of the church that the

"Cathedral" a story about a man who is annoyed with his wife's old friend that is blind, but ends up teaching him a new way of viewing life. “Walk a mile in my shoes, see what I see, hear what I hear, feel what I feel, THEN maybe you'll understand why I do what I do, 'till then don’t judge me.” The advice to “walk a mile in someone else's shoes” means before judging someone, you must understand their challenges are in life and what they go though. This is clearly expressed in the story “Cathedral” by the narrator himself.

Robert, the main character in Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral”, is the only blind man in the story. He is a caring, amiable man who even sets the narrator at ease. Robert visits the narrator’s wife after his own wife, Beulah, dies. He and the narrator’s wife have been listening to each other through the audiotapes they send back and forth during the past ten years. The narrator’s wife has recorded what she experiences including her marriage, suicide attempt, and divorce.

There is a man walking down the road, struggling every step, reaching his hands out against the wall in order to walk straight. A group of kids are next to him, laughing and pointing. The man is blind. But, these kids that are laughing at this man are the one’s who are truly blind. In the short story, “Cathedral”, Carver delves into the issue of blindness.

A person’s inability to see is often taken for granted as it is in “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver (1981). The title suggests the story is about an actual cathedral, however, it is about two men who are blind, one physically and one figuratively. One of the men is Robert, the physically blind man, a friend of the narrator’s wife; the other is the narrator himself, the figuratively blind man. Carver displays the development of the naïve narrator throughout the story through narration, a moment of epiphany, and symbolism. Carver uses first-person narration to tell the story of “Cathedral”.