Robert, the main character in Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral”, is the only blind man in the story. He is a caring, amiable man who even sets the narrator at ease. Robert visits the narrator’s wife after his own wife, Beulah, dies. He and the narrator’s wife have been listening to each other through the audiotapes they send back and forth during the past ten years. The narrator’s wife has recorded what she experiences including her marriage, suicide attempt, and divorce. She sent the tapes to Robert, who has responds in return. He is the person the narrator’s wife would find when she really needed a talk, and gives an epiphany to the narrator at the end of the story; he encourages the narrator to draw the cathedral, which the narrator cannot describe in words. Robert is an insightful, compassionate man who takes time to truly listen to others, this helps the narrator to “see” the cathedral better than only with his eyes.
Robert is a lenient and easygoing person. Even though the narrator shows his unpleasant feelings about his visit, Robert turned the contradiction to ease at last. Initially, Robert is a mysterious person to the narrator; the narrator has no idea about a blind man, and he has been lurking in the background of his wife’s life. He also touched his wife’s face when she worked for him at the past. After that, Robert married the next woman who worked for him. To sum up all the things that the narrator knows, Robert
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The important thing about Robert is not his blindness, but rather that he is a person who lives with what he has to make the best life that he can for himself. Although Robert has a harsh and extraordinary life, he can still be tough enough to face every challenge in his life. Even though Robert gives the epiphany to the narrator, he is not a magician or a wizard in any way, but the impact of this interaction for the narrator is almost