Face Of The Blind Man In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

Taking things at face value is no stranger to most people now-a-days. It is easier to look at something for what it seems to be than actually see them, and although it seems like such a small difference, it can drastically change the way you understand the world around them. The narrator in Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” learns this lesson since he spends his entire life only looking at the things and people around him. He would only look at his wife, his house, even Robert – a blind man that the narrator’s wife used to work for. He would soon learn the lesson of seeing things for what they truly are as he and Robert come to terms with each other in quite a strange way. In the beginning the unnamed narrator describes himself, the

He “remembered reading somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it they couldn’t see the smoke they inhaled.” (Carver 440) Color the narrator surprised when he watched the ashtray filling up and Robert lighting up another cigarette. During dinner he would watch as Robert faultlessly cut the meat on this plate and dig into the potatoes and beans. Even though the blind man’s actions went against what the narrator thought, he would still continue to do or say things that his wife would chastise him for such as turning on the TV. No one would know the development this simple action would

Cathedrals would become the next section of the show, drawing the attention of both men as they watched and listened. They would speak about the buildings, the narrator trying as much as he could to describe the architecture from the spires to the buttresses, and even though he would deny his ability to properly explain, Robert was not bothered. Instead, the blind man would opt for another solution that would deter the narrators’ way of thinking to something both men could feel. Asking for the narrator to grab heavy paper and something to write with, the two would begin to draw the cathedrals neither could truly see. As the paper became marked with windows and arches and buttresses the narrator would begin to feel something that was “like nothing else in (my) life up to now” when he closed his eyes. Even after Robert gave him the okay to open them he didn’t open them, keeping them shut because he “thought it was something I ought to do.” (Carver 446) He doesn’t open his eyes for the remainder of the story, seemingly enjoying the feeling of this new