Intellectual Blindness In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

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. He makes the reader begin to question, is it more important to be physical blind or intellectually blind? Carver juxtaposes the two main characters- the narrator and Robert- by utilizing their differences in order to suggest that intellectual blindness is more limiting than physical blindness. The narrator’s prejudice towards blind people being based upon ideas through media, displays the

After experiencing this moment with Robert, the narrator has the option of opening his eyes once he is done with the drawing, “But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do” (7). Although the narrator has the option to open his eyes, his transformation begins to occur when he decides to keep his eyes closed in order to experience this intellectual awakening that is occurring. He finally begins to see the importance of these emotional connections, that have been limiting him and have made him emotionally blind to what he can truly experience by opening himself up. Then, the last line of the story is when the narrator finally experiences his true epiphany. He says, “It’s really something” (7). By finally experiencing what it was like to truly experience a connection that is deeper than just physical, the narrator now understands the importance of the power of how his blindness has affected him. He experiences this epiphany of how his intellectual blindness has limited him from experiencing what the world is truly like, but after his moment with the blind man, he now realizes that opening his mind up allows him to experience this feeling that he