Stereotyped Images In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

In the short story, Cathedral by Raymond Carver, the word “blind” acquires different meanings. The unnamed narrator is metaphorically blind; he can look at the surface of everything but not see what is inside. Although the narrator can listen to conversations, he cannot understand the deeper emotional context the conversation might hold, compared to Robert, who is visually impaired but can truly listen and understand. It is not until the end of the story that the narrator metaphorically opens his eyes, with assistance from Robert.

Furthermore, the title of the short story has symbolic representation to the transformation the narrator partakes as the story ends. Specifically, when the narrator begins to explain the cathedral on the TV and is unable to describe it with detail to Robert, shows how blind he is even though he is able to look at the things show in the program. In the short story, Robert suggests to the narrator to work together on drawing a cathedral to better illustrate it. As both hold on to the pen and trace the cathedral unto the piece of paper bag, Robert is able to visualize it in his mind; the narrator, on the other hand, gets to a point in his life where he realizes that he is now able to see, rather than just look at something, and is able to understand its meaning, as he states “it was like nothing else in my life up to now…my eyes were still closed.” Here, the narrator recognizes that even though his eyes were closed, as if he was blind, he is able to tell how immensely and detailed cathedrals are.

Carver is well known for his short stories and poetries. Among his works, “Cathedral” is considered one of the best, favorite, and most optimistic and the most developed. Carver’s story revolves around the theme of seeing and looking. Most people believed they could not live without cathedrals which brought them closer to their God. Similarly, people place so much importance to the physical eyesight and tend to think they can hardly live without it. Robert, a blind man, is invited to the narrator’s home and the narrator is shown troubled by Roberts’s disability. Later on, the narrator is amazed to see the blind smoking despite having even thought of helping him with his drink earlier on (Carver 516- 524). The latter brought to attention that as much as natural looking is essential, more essential is the ability to see or to visualize things. The writer explains that it might be tougher to be without eyesight; however, it is possible to live without it and make the best of what else one has, more so the brain. Visualizing brings out a better view of the significance of life and things surrounding us.

Carver’s short story “Cathedral” is about a man and a woman who are married. The woman’s blind friend Robert, whose wife just died is coming to stay with them because he plans on visiting his dead wife’s relatives nearby. Robert knew the man’s wife because she worked for him one summer, reading to Robert. The wife and Robert stayed in touch over the years by sending tapes to each other, and letting each other know about what was going on in their lives. When the man hears Robert is coming over he makes idiotic comments about Robert’s wife and felt that Robert would be a burden on them because he is blind. The man and the woman proceed to argue over the situation. The wife tells her husband, “If you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable” (Carver, “Cathedral” 34). The man responds to this by stating, “I don’t have any blind friends” (Carver, “Cathedral” 34). When Robert finally arrives, they converse, drink, and eat together. After, the wife goes upstairs, the man and Robert begin to smoke some weed together. While the wife was sleeping, they start watching TV together and talking. Robert asks the man to explain to him what a cathedral looks like because cathedrals came up on the TV. The man has trouble explaining it and cannot describe to Robert what a cathedral looks like. Then Robert asks the man to draw a cathedral with him. Robert request that the man close his eyes, and they begin to draw. This is where the story ends and it seems that this is when the man became aware of the difficult lives blind people live as he could not explain what a cathedral looked like, and he could not see his drawing.

In the “Cathedral,” Raymond Carver tried to portray two different aspects of blindness; one is a person who physically unable to see the world due to lack of eyes and other aspect concerns about narrator’s and his wife’s blindness who are not blind physical but socially and emotionally. In this story, there are various metaphors of blindness. One example of which is a blind person helping the other person (who is not visually impaired) to draw cathedral even though he hasn't seen one. Blindness is not a physical inability of a person; it's beyond than that. In the “Cathedral,” Robert wasn’t the one that was blind however, the narrator was blind.

"Cathedral" is a short story ultimately about enlightment, finding something more meaningful and deeper with in one self. Although from an observing point of view nothing more in the story happens then a blind man assisting the narrator in drawing a cathedral. Although as known, the narrator's experience radically differs from what is actually "observed". He is enlightened and opened up to a new world of vision and imagination. This brief experience will have a life long effect on him. The reason for this strong and positive effect is not so much the relationship made between the blind man and the narrator or even the actual events leading up to this experience, but rather it is mostly due to what was drawn by the narrator.

From a different angle, the narrator is stuck solely in the world of appearance which is repressed by the television in the story. Also, he seems emphatic and has a very superficial concept of relationships. For example, the narrator states that the blind man’s relationship with his now deceased wife, was “beyond his understanding”, he sums up the relationship by stating “They’d married, lived and worked together, slept together, had sex, sure, and then the blind man had to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned women looked like.” In short, this comes to show that the narrator care too much about how a person looks or how other people look, about what you say and do and what other people say and do. All things considered, the narrator feels very little compassion over the blind man, he feels as though he can see right through him, based on what he has seen on the television and the things he had heard, without attempting to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The reader first learns of the narrator's prejudices toward the world around him and especially to the seeing impaired in the introduction of the story. His biased opinion comes out when he explained, "My idea of blindness came from the movies… the blind moved slowly and never laughed"(P720). The narrator's narrow-minded conclusion brought forth the idea that the blind were no fun, and therefore no good to have around. "A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to"(P720). Another example of how the narrator's blurred vision affected his train of thought, was when he was trying to imagine what it must have been like for Robert's wife, Beulah. "… What a pitiful life this woman must have led"(P722). "Pathetic"(P722). The reader also catches a sense of jealousy coming from the narrator, directed toward the relationship Robert and his wife have. The fact that they were talking about him behind his back really agitated this jealousy. "I heard my own name in the mouth of this stranger, this blind man I didn't even know"(P721)! The degree of

And the husband’s vulnerability is shown is shown in his hostility to the blind man, whom he rightly suspects of having a psychologically more intimate relationship with his wife than he, with all his emotional blindnesses, is able to have.

In the beginning of the story the narrator did not feel too good about the blind man in the first paragraph he says that the only experience he has had with blind people was in the movies when they were often the person that moved slowly and did not laugh. The narrator did not have such a positive view on people that were blind because the narrator thought they were people that he could not relate to and were for the most part simple. When the narrator's wife was talking about inviting the blind man over she says the that the blind man’s wife had just passed away and then mentions the name of his wife Beulah the narrator then immediately asks if she is a negro. The words that the narrator uses referring to the race of the blind man's wife indicates that he might have a bias or does not have a positive view on interracial marriage.

The narrator finds it tragic that the blind man had never seen the woman he loved. He thinks it adds to the tragedy even more when he learns that as a couple they were inseparable.

In Carvers’ Cathedral, blindness does not equate to the physically unseeing, but to those who are spiritually ignorant or doubtful. The exploration of the main characters disbelief, his interaction of doubt toward his antagonist, and the epiphany he eventually has are all relevant to the theme of literal blindness versus spiritual blindness; these events will ultimately alter the main characters views of occurrences with Faith, along with his subjective opinions on any occurrences that need faith to be understood.

Undoubtedly, the story captures the narrator as a person who is very cold in his associations with people. The description of the wedding between Robert and Beulah as not worth attending by anyone is utter insensitivity on his part. Further, the way he describes the blind man’s eyes is very distasteful, “As I stared at his face, I saw the left pupil turn in toward his nose while the other made an effort to keep in one place...” Further still his insensitivity is revealed by him saying that he knew blind men to be led by dogs. He was that

In the story “Cathedral”, author, Raymond Carver, show the readers that a person does not need their eyes to see as sight has a deeper meaning for different people. Within the story, the narrator, husband, describe his experience with his wife’s longtime friend Robert, a blind man who came to visit after losing his own wife to cancer. The story takes place in the husbands home somewhere in the East Coast near Connecticut. As the husband has a drink and waits for his wife’s arrival with Robert, the husband shows an uneasiness about Robert being blind. Upon their arrival, the husband notices how joyful and happy his wife is with Robert and does not understand why. Inside the home, the husband and Robert had a few drinks accompanied with light conversation until dinner where the husband is impressed at how the Robert can describe the foods there are eating. After the dinner, the husband leaves to the couch to watch T.V. The wife and Robert join the husband him shortly after. After the wife falls asleep on the couch, the husband stops on a channel where they speak of Cathedrals and the blind man want him to describe it. Unable to use descriptive word to help Robert see, Robert asks the husband to draw the Cathedral on a paper thick enough so Robert can feel the lines. Robert joins hands with the husband as he draws on the paper and begins to visualize what a cathedral looks like while the husband has an insight on how to see through the eyes

This short story by Raymond Carver shows how the routines of life can sometimes create a dull sense in a person causing dismissal of emotional connection simply because there is no need. Through the eyes of the narrator, the ability to see places his at a disadvantage to emotionally connect with other, namely his wife. He’s inability to see his troubled marriage suddenly puts him in a jealous and judgmental state when he meets a blind friend of his wife, named Robert, who comes to visit and spend the night. Because of the friend’s blindness, the narrator feels a sense of superiority. From an evening setting to night fall, the tone of the story remains low and uncaring until one moment surrounding the image of a cathedral causes a change in the narrator. The low-spirited, self-center, wisecracking person, who language use is bold and uncaring, experiences an extraordinary emotional connection with the bind man creating an almost spiritual enlightened version of seeing through the eyes of a blind person.