The Concept Of Blindness In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

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In the story, “Cathedral" The narrator shows Raymond Caver, who appeared to have a limited awareness breaks through his limitations and insecurity by socializing with a blind man. This is revealed through Carver 's description of the narrator’s actions, and his eventual self-realization, throughout the ending the protagonist overcame his prejudice by coming through understanding, and allowed his self-awareness to change how he think, and feels about Robert when he finally came to realizes that Robert can experience the world as much as a normal human being. As the story begins, the narrator displays a negative personality of jealousy, due to his wife’s friendship with a blind man named Robert. He always mentioned that …show more content…

He basically jumps out of conclusion based on his knowledge of blind people, which seems to be a negative mentality. Throughout the reading the narrator’s prejudice makes him emotionally blind. His inability to see past Robert’s disability, which caused him to have a lot of discomfort towards his wife. While, he admits that some-things are simply beyond his understanding, his limited awareness completely blinds him to the reality of the world. At times it seems as if he’s jealous of Robert’s interaction with his wife. On the other hand, his wife demonstrates a much more positive attitude towards him. She sees Robert as a normal person and she had no problem interacting with him. While her husband felt completely opposite starting with how he mention him from the beginning as “The Bling man” he only judge him by appearance instead of calling him out of his real name which seems as in a way Robert disability was not the only thing that triggered his irritation partially is the way his wife …show more content…

This shows how cruel and prejudice society can be when judging their fellow man by their appearance as an African descent man. Throughout his journey, people have misjudged him because he is a black man, and he realizes how much his appearance intimidates others. This can relate to Robert how the narrator illustrates how he’s viewed differently in Raymond eyes as supposed to be a normal person. Him as the “Blind man” in the story and how Raymond Caver treat him indifferent because of his disabities of not being able to see gives others power over him. Society idea of race is based on physical characteristics and skin color. As with other groups of people stereotype continues today and black men are portrayed as being lazy and unemployed. The stereotypes of African American culture dates back to slavery. As a result of this, most black men are still perceived as being short tempered, arrogant and violent group of people, hence the reason so many are easily the first to be targeted for crimes committed; especially in white communities. In the article the author describes his attendance as a new student at the University of Chicago only brought on fear and anxiety by another

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