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Accepting With Sight In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

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Sight is a gift that people are given that an abundance of people takes for granted in countless ways. In the story “Cathedral”, written by Raymond Carver, readers are introduced to a modern story on people realizing the truth behind the art of not seeing. He uses intense and lyrical descriptions on both sides of being blind and seeing through someone who cannot physically see. An abundance of people has found themselves under the ridicule of judging, and finding this unfortunate defect within someone’s unique genetic makeup to be a burden or even a curse from God. Within this story the main character learns to see without actually seeing with the help of his new-found friend Robert who teaches him new ways of looking upon his own life. In the beginning of the story, the narrator is described as hateful towards the blind man that his wife has invited to stay with them. Robert, the blind man has just lost his wife and decided to visit his old friend (the narrator’s wife) while he was down to see his in-laws. The narrator was not jealous or vein about the man, but more so intimidated and uneasy about his blindness as a whole. He based his ideas on the blind as what he saw in the movies as being “the …show more content…

She tells him “If you love me you can do this for me. If you don’t love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable.” (1497) He then begins to talk about how bad he feels for the blind man’s wife for she could never see how her lover saw her through his own eyes. He thinks on how he could never compliment her beauty or how she looked that. He could never admire her in his own eyes as one looks upon his wife. He was more worried about how the man felt about his wife physically more so than the strong connection they built emotionally. It’s not all about looks, and he could not genuinely look past

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