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Essay On Cathedral

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The Understanding of a Blind Man In the short “Cathedral” the narrator is the character that is being evaluated on how he changes his ways throughout the course of the story. In the story a blind man comes to visit after the death of his wife. When the narrator learns about this he is not thrilled about the visit. The narrator’s wife is all to excited about the visit which does cause some tension between the two. The narrator changes slowly through the course of the story, but he does make a huge change from being narrow minded to open minded. The story beings by the narrator coming right out with his closed mindedness by saying the blind was coming to visit and that all he knew about blind people came from movies. The narrator said how …show more content…

The change the narrator encounters is presented when he decides to stop saying “I” and begins saying “We”. He has given not only Robert some sense of identity but also himself. To add to their bonding is when the narrator’s wife leaves the room allowing the two men to bond without her judging the narrator. Then when the wife comes back into the room she falls asleep and her robe opens open exposing her thigh, and the narrator instead of becoming anxious he realizes Robert cannot see so why close the robe up. The two then begin to watch a documentary about cathedrals and this is where the narrator goes through his final and biggest change. Robert asks him to draw a cathedral so that he can see it, and the narrator does so allowing Robert to place his hand over the narrator’s hand showing a sense of intimacy. This is where the narrator allows himself to completely open his mind to new things. “Cathedral” is a really good example of how one can let go of the insecurities. The narrator allows himself to open to Robert the blind man, and really get to see that he is no different from the narrator. In the story the narrator makes his dynamic change by allowing himself to be able give and receive identity. He lets go of everything that he knows about blind people to actually learn that they are no different form himself. He realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he just has to look deeper than the

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The unnamed narrator does not see Robert, the blind man, as a person, but as someone different. The grandmother, on the other hand, believes in her appearance and belief that is better than other people. After the challenges they both face, they end up finding enlightenment. In “Cathedral,” the narrator was not certain on how to describe the Cathedral to Robert. The narrator resorts to drawing and with a pen in his hand, he had realized that Robert “closed his hand over my hand” and asks the narrator to “close your eyes” as they drew the Cathedral (75-76).

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He realizes how smart Robert is, and he keeps being shocked as the night goes on. While listening to a show about Cathedrals, Robert asks the narrator to describe him a Cathedral. The narrator tries his hardest, but can not do it. To combat this, Robert takes the narrator's hand and has him close his eyes and together they draw the church just from memory. After drawing the Cathedrals, the narrator describes the picture as, “ It’s really something” (103).He learns how seeing is not everything in life, and how wrong he was with his assumptions about Robert.

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The narrator had never meet a blind person before and believed in the stereotypes. The narrator said “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 331), in the last sentence of the first paragraph. For the narrator, there should be no problem letting a blind man into the house. Throughout this short story the husband continues to make short remarks to the old blind man, as well as keeping a routine for making comments to the blind man. For the reader it is really easy not to pay attention to the story and instantly get annoyed.

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Odysseus and Moses are both revered historical figures in each of their fields of literature. Both of these men had a calling from on high, and they were both tested by their gods. However, the paths they took to get there were quite different. Odysseus was a fearless warrior yet arrogant and prideful. He was called to lead his people out of Troy, but he struggled with his ego throughout his journey home.

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A Cathedral is a place for people to go and worship, to connect with God. By drawing the Cathedral the narrator is in some ways also making a connection. For the first time, he appears to be able to see. The narrator's ignorance and preconceptions fade away because he sees that although Robert has the gift of knowing and understanding people. There is also a sense of irony at the end of the story.

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From that moment, the narrator show his true side to me. It shows that he doesn’t not care about his wife feeling toward the blind man. After carefully reading “cathedral”, the narrator is jealous of the blind man relationship with his

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Because of his narcissistic personality, the narrator views his wife as an object, while the blind man, Robert, treats her as a friend and a confidant. The narrator’s inability to feel emotion causes him to value his wife’s body more than her emotions, therefore, he becomes jealous when the blind

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What if someone unexpected changed your way of thinking, permanently? What if God chose to send someone into your life to abolish you superficial thoughts? In both the stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, by Flannery O’Connor, and “Cathedral”, by Raymond Carver, the authors create main characters who lack faith and think superficially about life. However, in both stories, the authors send unexpected characters to act like mediums, for their job is to be the connection of the main character’s initial position in faith and their final position, revealed at the end of both stories. Even though the stories have a different plot and involve diverse kinds of characters, the final message and moral is the same.

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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.

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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.

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I peer intently at the man seated in front of me, his face distorted by the fluorescent lights cast down from above. I let out a huff, is this really how I’m spending my Friday night? When I was called in for an emergency questioning, I was excited. But this fool isn’t worth my time. I know I’m younger than most detectives, but I still do deserve valid cases.

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he was on his way to spend the night. His wife had died” (Carver 84). This shows his attitude towards blind people by pointing out that Robert is blind, and not just an “old friend of [his] wife’s” (Carver 84). Carver develops the two main characters to completely contrast one and other both physically, and psychologically.

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Robert asks about the narrator’s religion which brings them to the topic of Cathedrals. Since Robert is blind he doesn’t know exactly what a Cathedral is and only can picture a normal building and what he thinks it might be like. As they continue to talk, Robert asks for some paper and a pen. Robert takes Bub’s hand and tells him to draw a Cathedral. Robert continues to cheer Bub on and continue drawing.

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Furthermore, the narrator is starting to realize that he enjoys Robert’s company as well as compelled to explore Robert’s eye sight limits, to help Robert visualize a cathedral. The narrator tries to describe a cathedral, but failed to do so, and retreats back into cynicism. The narrator’s response Robert’s question was, “the truth is, cathedrals don’t mean anything special to me. Nothing cathedrals.

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The narrator curiously asks Robert if he knew how to describe a Cathedral. Unsure, Robert tells him to draw one for him so he can better understand. The narrator puts Robert’s hand on his so that he can feel the motion of him drawing. “He found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his hand over mine” (3.30).

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