Lack of Vision in Carvers Cathedral Essay -- Carver Cathedral Essays

Lack of Vision in Cathedral The narrator in Raymond Carvers Cathedral is not a particularly sensitive serviceman. I might describe him as self-centered, ostensible, and egotistical. And while his actions certainly speak to these points, it is his misunderstanding of the people and the kinds presented to him in this story which establish most clearly his tragic flaw while Robert is physically unsighted, it is the narrator who cannot clearly make the world around him. In the eyes of the narrator, Roberts blindness is his defining characteristic. The opening line of Cathedral reads, This blind man, an old friend of my wifes, he was on his way to spend the night (1052). Clearly, the narrator cannot see past Roberts disability he dismisses him in the same way a white racist might dismiss a black individual. In reality, any prejudicebe it based on gender, race, or disabilityinvolves a persons inability to look past a superficial quality. People who judge a person based on such a characteristic are only seeing the particular aspect of the person that makes them uncomfortable. They are not seeing the whole person. The narrator has unconsciously placed Robert in a category that he labels abnormal, which stops him from seeing the blind man as an individual. The narrators reaction to Roberts individuality shows his stereotypical views. The narrator assumed Robert did not do certain things, just because he was blind. When he first saw Robert his reaction was simple This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard A beard on a blind man Too much, I say (Carver 1055). When Robert smokes a cigarette, the narrator thinks, I . . . read somewhere that the blind didnt smoke because, as guess had it, they c... ...nd optimistic (Watson 114). The few critics who have written specifically about Cathedral tend concentrate on that optimism, seen at the end of the story with the narrators esthetic experience and realization (Robinson 35). In concentrating on the fin al realization experienced by the narrator, the literary community has overlooked his deep-rooted misunderstanding of everything consequential in life. The narrators prejudice makes him emotionally blind. His inability to see past Roberts disability stops him from seeing the reality of any relationship or person in the story. And while he admits some things are simply beyond his understanding, he is unaware he is so completely blind to the reality of the world. Works Cited Carver, Raymond. Cathedral. The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York HarperCollins, 1991. 1052-1062.