“Living is easy with eyes closed” – John Lennon. It’s clear that everyone has their own beliefs and opinions about everything. Some of these beliefs are based on facts, T.V, news and even stereotypes. “Cathedral,” a short story written by Raymond Carver, is about a man who tries to understand and accept a blind man that his wife had invited to stay at their house. In a short amount of time, our unnamed narrator who has a firm hold on what a blind person should be, undergoes a change when he comes face to face with one. Having thought that all blind people needed canes or black tinted glasses to cover their eyes, his assumption of blind people went out the door when our narrator comes face to face with the blind man, Robert, for the first time. Throughout the short story, our narrator slowly begins to see that the blind man is more than capable of taking care of himself. This can be seen when our narrator is surprised to see how well the blind man eats during dinner. “The blind man had right away located his foods, he knew just where everything was on his plate. I watched with admiration as he used the knife …show more content…
It wasn’t until later on when Robert was offered to smoke some marijuana by the male host. As they puffed and talked, I feel that this is where Robert had a sense of connection and our narrator began to see him more as a person then just a blind helpless man. “I’ll try some with you,” he said. “Damn right,” I said. “That’s the stuff” (par 58-59) this scene here gave me the feeling that he was puffing with a long lost friend for the first time in many years and their friendship was rekindled. As we see throughout the short story, our narrator is slowly realizing that he himself was the blind one, that all of his prior thoughts to blind people were out of ignorance and the lack of
In the short story, Cathedral by Raymond Carver, the word “blind” acquires different meanings. The unnamed narrator is metaphorically blind; he can look at the surface of everything but not see what is inside. Although the narrator can listen to conversations, he cannot understand the deeper emotional context the conversation might hold, compared to Robert, who is visually impaired but can truly listen and understand. It is not until the end of the story that the narrator metaphorically opens his eyes, with assistance from Robert.
Throughout the story, the narrator perceives Robert as an inadequate person, pathetic, needing help to find his way around and simply not being able to provide for himself. “But he didn’t use a cane and he didn’t
Once Robert arrives some, of the narrators assumptions about blind people are broke down immediately like when he mentions "He didn't use a cane and he didn't
Everyone at one point has judged a book by its cover. In the short story, “Cathedral”, Raymond Carver creates a narrator who bases off ideas and assumptions about blind people from movies. The narrator has never interacted with a blind person before the day where his wife invites her friend, who is named Robert, to stay. The narrator and Robert have never met, but the narrator has a strong dislike towards Robert before meeting. The narrator’s closed-mindedness and misconceptions leads him to judge Robert, however after a few hours of interaction, the narrator learns more about him and grows to have a new perspective about people not being who they think they are.
In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the husband's view of blind men is changed when he encounters his wife's long time friend, Robert. His narrow minded views and prejudice thoughts of one stereotype are altered by a single experience he has with Robert. The husband is changed when he thinks he personally sees the blind man's world. Somehow, the blind man breaks through all of the husband's jealousy, incompetence for discernment, and prejudgments in a single moment of understanding.
299). This shows that the narrator doesn’t know too much about the blind and is very stereotypical of them. The blind man and the narrator soon get together in which the narrator is asked to draw a cathedral with his eyes shut. Not only does he close his eyes, he keeps them closed after finishing the drawing. “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything” (Anthology pg.311). This line said by narrator makes the reader believe that he may take things for granted and may just go about his day without noticing much.
I enjoyed reading “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. The story is realistic, relatable, and meaningful. The main protagonist, Bub, is arrogant and superficial. Because of Robert’s intimate relationship with his wife, he does not like the blind man. To cover up the fact that he is jealous, he states that he never had a blind man in his house before and that Robert does not have the characteristics he thought blind people have. Robert does not wear glasses, has a beard and etc. On page 90 he says, “I always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind.” This shows that even before he met Bub, he already had some preconceived picture of Bub that hinders him from really getting to know the real Bub. However, towards the end of the story he seems
The beginning of the story presents the narrator’s wife working for a blind man one summer by reading, “stuff to him, case studies, reports, that sort of thing” (Carver, 34). She eventually extends an invitation for the blind man, Robert, to stay at their house after Robert’s wife had passed away. The narrator was not too happy about having a stranger stay in his home by stating, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed” (Carver, 34). The narrator seems very timid about someone he had never met stay at his house who can see purely nothing. This gives off an impression that the narrator doesn’t want to have Robert stay with him because he will be a hassle to keep up with since blind people in the “movies” progress, “slowly and never
Because of this the husband was completely ignorant about blind people and could only rely on his preconceived notions about the blind to interact with Robert. The husband thought all blind people always wore dark glasses and used a cane or guide-dog. He didn’t think blind men smoked because they couldn’t see the smoke. He even says “My idea of blindness came from the movies.” Those movies had portrayed blind people as slow, never laughing, and being guided by guide-dogs implying and enforcing the stereotype that the blind/disabled are helpless, weird, and/or inferior. Kemp says in a paper from 1981, the same year “Cathedral” was published, that there are three main ill-mannered views of the blind: non-acceptance, the blind are helpless and dependant, and the sighted must help the blind. These are all negative and are representative of the way the blind were viewed during the time of the story showing how the husband saw Robert as a blind man.
The notion of possessing an intrinsic bias is introduced in Raymond Carver’s Cathedral. He highlights how perception can affect the way people interact and communicate with each other for the first time. In the short story, the narrator himself is blind to the emotions of the people around him and eschews any form of self-reflection until the very end. He is envious of the blind man, who shares an intimate relationship with the narrator’s wife. However, the blind man is depicted as insightful and personal. Carver discloses in Cathedral that Robert, the blind man, and the narrator’s wife had been exchanging audiotapes for years, sharing their experiences and difficulties with one another.
Prejudice is an issue that is present in communities around the world due to diversity in race, religion, sexual orientation, lifestyles and physical disabilities of others as well. However, sometimes it just takes a life changing moment for one to realize that he or she should not discriminate against others just because of their appearance or beliefs. In the story “Cathedral”, author Raymond Carver writes about a man who is prejudging towards his wife’s blind friend, Robert, who will be visiting the couple. At first the narrator, or “Bub” as Robert nicknamed him, does not like the idea of Robert staying there because he is blind. Once Robert arrives, “Bub” does not really make an effort to get along with him; they had dinner together
In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carter, the narrator has his vision, but he does not truly see the world. The blind man lacks sight, but sees deeper meanings to life.
The speaker puts Robert in a category that stops him from seeing him as an individual, yet receives an eye-opening experience through the blind man’s knowledge and
The story opens with the narrator giving a background of his wife and Robert. Immediately, it is easy for the audience to form a negative opinion about the narrator. Within the first paragraph of the story he says, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (Carver 33). This exemplifies his pre-formed opinion about Robert even though he hardly knows anything about him. He clearly is uncomfortable with the fact that Robert is blind, mainly based on his lack of exposure to people with disabilities. The narrator is very narrow-minded for most of this story, making it easy to initially dislike him.
The story “Cathedral” demonstrates that lack of sight does not necessarily prevent one from perceiving things as they are, or live their life to the fullest. In the story, a middle-age blind man, who is a friend to the narrator’s wife, and used to be her boss at one point, visits the narrator and his wife. The narrator has never interacted with blind people before, and all he knew about blind people was what he had seen on television. Blind people are stereotypically portrayed on television as slow moving, dull people, who never laugh. Based on this perception, the narrator was reluctant to meet the blind man and doubted whether they were going to connect. This is evident when the narrator states, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (Carver 1).