cathedral
...Carver sympathizes with the narrator’s wife. The way Carver illustrates the narrator’s wife, the reader gets 2 the feeling of the wife being embarrassed. She covers up for her husband’s mistakes. In this story the first person narrator is the husband and also the protagonist. The narrator’s wife has a long-time friendship with a blind man named Robert. He states, “his being blind bothered me.” It is apparent that the narrator cannot see past Robert’s handicap. The narrator’s wife becomes annoyed with him when he makes sly remarks like “maybe I could take him bowling.” Although the narrator is being sarcastic, his wife doesn’t see the humor in it. The narrator is unhappy in his work, jealous of his wife, and unconnected to other human beings. In addition to not being connected to others himself, he seems to resent his wife’s connections to other people as well. The narrator doesn’t know how to interact with the blind man. After an evening of drinking, smoking, and getting to know each other, Robert and the narrator begin to draw a cathedral together. The narrator’s opinion and attitude change as he spends more time with Robert. Robert helps the narrator understand what it is like to be blind through the drawing of the cathedral. Robert also helps the narrator see the importance of not judging people because they are different. The main conflict in “Cathedral” is internal. The time the narrator spends with Robert causes him to look inside himself for understanding on his perception of blind people. He begins to see the lack of association he has with blind people and also his unreasonable judgments of how blind people live and act. But, perhaps the narrator’s perceptions are harsh and rude because he is afraid of what he doesn’t understand. The narrator is unable to see things the way Robert sees them. The conflict between the narrator and Robert forces the narrator to humble himself enough to allow 3 Robert to show him how a blind person sees the world. Keeping his eyes closed, he lets his imagination run wild, and the outcome is that he is able to perceive things through the eyes of a blind man. The story’s point of view is first person. The narrator shows his thoughts and feelings on the blind man and blind people in general. He states, “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs.” He soon realizes this description is not always true, and that he himself is blind to the abilities that blind people have. The story only shows the narrator’s thoughts. If a different point of view were used, such as omniscient, it would show the wife’s thoughts and Robert’s thoughts as well. Having the first person narrator helps a reader get to know the narrator better. The story is set in the narrator’s house in New York. The narrator is skeptical of the blind man’s visit to his house. His remarks to his wife reveal this hostility: “Now this same blind man was coming to sleep in my house,” the narrator remarks. His wife says,” If you love me you can do this for me. If you don’t love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable.” The narrator responds, “I don’t have any blind friends.” This shows the hostility the narrator has towards the blind man sleeping over at his house. ...