Robert And Beulah Analysis

Conversely, through his ability to listen and express emotions, Robert forms a deeper connection – one nonexistent in the narrator’s marriage – with both his and the narrator’s wife. Robert and Beulah have a relationship that the narrator cannot at all understand. In fact, the narrator pities both of them, feeling “sorry for the blind man” for not knowing how Beulah looks and “thinking what a pitiful life [Beulah] must have led” (Carver 213). The narrator perceives love as literal, fed by physical beauty and not emotion, whereas Robert and Beulah prove the opposite, that love is fed by something deeper. The narrator’s primary thought involves whether Beulah could “wear makeup or not,” highlighting his materialistic concept of love (Carver 213).

If they had not split the coin in half, it would be worth twenty pesos. However, due to its division, the coin no longer contains any inherent value, other than its representation of Robert and Beulah’s relationship. They each hold half, which connects them spiritually. Analogously, the narrator views love as a twenty-peso Mexican coin, in which value is drawn from physical sight and beauty. With that sight damaged, he fails to recognize the persisting value or deeper symbolism. Furthermore, the strength of Robert’s relationship with the narrator’s wife surpasses the strength of the narrator’s marriage, even though Robert and the narrator’s wife live miles apart. Tapes are the medium of their correspondence, where they share the darkest aspects of lives, such as the wife’s unhappiness with her military lifestyle, her suicide attempt, and her divorce. Still, like poetry, the narrator sees the tapes as simply a “means of recreation,” when the purpose greater aligns with emotional fulfillment (Carver 211). Touch is also an aspect of Robert and the narrator’s wife’s relationship, specifically that of the