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The Eyes Are Full Of Dust By Raymond Carver

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“Much of our ignorance is of ourselves. Our eyes are full of dust. Prejudice blinds us” (Abraham Coles). In other words, our ignorance of our own misconceptions leads to prejudice and once we realize this we can rid ourselves of this prejudice. As the narrator in Cathedral, a short story by Raymond Carver, learns of his own misconceptions about blind people, the “dust” slowly gets washed out of his eyes and he begins to see. As a result, he learns more about himself and obtains a new view of the world around him.
The narrator 's prejudice towards the blind is evident throughout the story and his reactions to evidence contrary to his beliefs, at first, show that he is in denial and defensive of his misconceptions. When he first meets the blind man, the narrator notices that he does not carry a cane or wear dark glasses. His initial response to this seems defensive. He points out “creepy” or different things about the blind man like how he has “too much white in the iris” (5). Right off the bat, the blind man is not what the narrator expects. As a result, he not only feels that he needs to point out the blind man’s flaws, but he also feels that he needs to be right about something as indicated by his use of “I knew it” repeatedly when he asks the blind man what he would like to drink (5). Additionally, when the narrator turns the TV on, he hears something that does not agree with his previously determined conceptions about the blind. He discovers that, like any ordinary
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