The Blind Man In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver the short story based on three essential characters the narrator, his wife and the blind man. In this story the narrator who is biased and drastically changed when the blind man opens his eyes, makes him realize the importance of his life. The story begins by saying, "This blind man, an old friend of my wife, was on his way to spend the night” the blind man visits the narrator and his wife after his own wife, Beulah, dies. The blind man and the narrator’s wife are good friends since ten years as the narrator’s wife had worked for him last summer. He was not pleased about the blind man’s visit to his home. The three characters that I will discuss throughout the paper are my friend Harry would be the blind man,

The narrator feels envious of his wife’s marriage with her childhood friend. The narrator talks about his wife to the blind man all through the story. He doesn't look to be happy and he is not open-minded at all. From the beginning of the story the narrator has an unfriendly identity. He is jealous of his wife's friendship with the blind man. We can see that from "Beulah, Beulah! That’s the name given for a colored woman. Was his wife a negro?” The narrator sounds cruel along with being disrespectful. His beliefs about the blind man are in view of just what he has found in the motion pictures. “In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by Seeing Eye dogs, a blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.” This line shows how the narrator has formed his judgements on what he saw in the movies. The wife doesn't like the way the narrator was behaving with the blind man; instead of being friendly he was making jokes of the blind man. Like the narrator, my friend’s grandfather Ronny excuses, he blames others for his drinking, and he keeps on searching out and utilize high measures of liquor daily. Ronny is selfish, mean and extremely possessive just like