In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, a blind man named Robert help Bub, a person unable to understand or place the feelings of others in front of his own , open his eyes and realize how to consider others feelings. In the story, Robert comes to to visit Bub’s wife after his wife passes away. Bub is not looking forward to his encounter with Robert. As the story progresses, Bub is forced to interact with Robert in ways that seem foreign to him. Bub’s difference interactions with Robert builds up to the both of them drawing a cathedral together, which leads to Bub being changed and him placing Roberts points of view ahead of his own. Bub believes the world revolves around himself and lacks the ability to consider others feeling ahead of his own, …show more content…
When Robert and Bub’s wife first arrive and begin speaking to one another, Bub only focuses on how his wife is paying more attention to Robert than himself. Bub thinks to himself, “My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me”(Carver 38). Bub exposes one of his character traits when he narrates this potion of the story ,becauses of his attitude and word choice. Bub believes that his wife’s focus should be more on him than Robert, because Robert is blind and Bub is not. Bub learned Roberts name earlier in the story, but continues to refer to him as “ the blind man.” Robert is placed on a subcategory of human by Bub, which lead him to believe that he should be the center of attention and not Robert. While Robert and Bub’s wife are talking about their lives, Bub listens to their conversation. While listening, Bub, “waited to hear my [his] name on his wife’s sweet lips”(Carver 39). Bub is hoping his wife will talk about him when Robert and her are talking. The reseason Bub is hoping that his name will be brought up into the conversation is so that he will become the center of attention in the conversation. Bub believes that the world has to revolve around himself and wants to be the center of attention, which makes him …show more content…
In the beginning of “Cathedral” Bub has a clear prejudice towards the blind and was very close minded. When sharing his point of view on the blind, Bub explains that his, “idea of blindness came from the movies” and that “the blind moved slowly and never laughed”(Carver 34). Bub doesn’t directly say that he does not like the blind ,but he does hint at the idea of it. Having never been around a blind person and being forced to do so was not something Bub wanted to do, but helps push him towards an epiphany. At the end of the story while drawing the Cathedral, Robert has Bub close his eyes before they finish the drawing. Once finished Robert tell Bub to look at the finished drawing. Instead of opening his eyes Bub decided keep his “eyes closed” ,because he “thought it was something I [he] ought to do”(Carver 46). Bub had an epiphany when drawing the cathedral with Robert, which lead to Bub learning to how to look at situations from other people's point of view. After his realization, Bub began looking at his present situation through the eyes of Robert. By keeping his eyes closed Bub demonstrates that he has learned to consider the point of view another person. Bub is changed by the end of the story and learns how to look at situation from other people’s point of
He constantly complains that “a blind man in my house was not something [he looked] forward to” (362). The close friendship between the narrator’s wife and Robert provokes his insecurities. This friendship has lasted for ten years and during those years, they have exchanged countless tapes regarding experiences they have gone through. Because of this, her husband feels “she [has] told him everything or it seems” (363) about their relationship. Upon the arrival of his wife’s friend, the husband is ultimately uncomfortable around Robert because he does not know how to communicate with or act around him.
Bub’s misconceptions are now completely flipped as Robert is helping Bub with something Bub does not understand at all. It is as if Bub is the incapable one and Robert is his guide. By the time Bub and Robert are holding hands and drawing a picture together, Bub has released all his previous misconceptions and some of his insecurities. This is when Bub really begins to see the side of Robert that perhaps is why his wife loves him so much.
The close outside friendship between the narrator’s wife and Robert, the blind man, provokes the narrator’s insecurities. This friendship has lasted for ten long years. During those years, they have exchanged countless voice tapes wherein they both tell each other what has happened in their respective lives. Because of this, the narrator feels that his wife has told Robert more than Robert needs to know. The narrator laments, "she told him everything or so it seemed to me" (1054). The narrator’s fear is somehow confirmed when Robert arrives and says that he feels like they have already met (1055). The narrator is left wondering what his wife has disclosed. This murky situation leaves the narrator feeling insecure, especially when he sees the warm interaction between his wife and Robert.
...interracial relationships. However because of the way he acts when he hears about the two of them, it is obvious that he has led a sheltered life. But even after his entire life of not understanding what was going on in the world around him, one night with Robert enlightened him and changed his view on people and his surrounding environment.
The narrator’s prejudice makes him emotionally blind. His inability to see past Robert’s 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.
As a result of his inability to relate with Robert, he thinks his behaviors are odd, and is unable to understand the relationship he has with his wife. His wife worked for this blind man many years ago, reading him reports and case studies, and organizing his "...little office" (Carver 98) in the county's social-service department. He remem¬ bers a story his wife told about the last day she worked for him. The blind man asked her if he could touch her face, and she agreed.
Raymond Carver utilizes his character of the husband, who is also the narrator, in his short story "Cathedral." From the beginning of the story the narrator has a negative personality. He lacks compassion, has a narrow mind, is detached emotionally from others, and is jealous of his wife's friendship with a blind man named Robert. He never connects with anyone emotionally until the end of this story.
Not only does the husband not know how to communicate with Robert, he does not how to act around him either. A good example of this, shown after dinner, is when all three of them go into the living room. This is how the husband portrays what happens when they first enter the room: "Robert and my wife sat on the sofa.
One aspect where the narrator opens his mind is through the Blind man Robert. This can be shown through the changes in the way the narrator views Robert’s disability. At the start of the narrative, the narrator tells readers that he is bothered by Robert’s blindness
The narrator is uneasy with the thought of Robert staying in his house and believes that he is superior to the blind man. Even before an introduction is satisfied between the narrator and Robert, the narrator is a bit disturbed to have Robert staying in his house. Within the first paragraph of the story, the narrator’s agitation towards Robert is made apparent. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (Carver 33). The narrator assumes from Robert’s blindness that he is going to just be a nuisance to have to host because
He starts out by only referring to Robert as “the blind man” (201). not even giving him a proper title or name, rather giving him just what he is simply known for (being blind). This shows that to the narrator Robert is nothing more than just a handicapped man rather than a person. The narrator starts by creating a stereotype of blind men always having to wear glasses to cover their eyes. He says “But he didn’t use a cane and didn’t wear glasses. I’d always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wished he had a pair” (203). This not only shows his assumption of blind men having to wear glasses but also how he wishes that the blind man would wear glasses because of his own discomfort. He also creates a stereotype that blind men don’t smoke, he states, “ I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled...but this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one” (204). Displaying that there was yet another assumption of the narrator’s that was proven incorrect by the blind man himself. Such assumptions continue throughout the story with his shock of how Robert has two televisions as well as how the blind man “right away located his foods” and how “he [the blind man] knew just where everything was on his plate” (204). Such actions by the blind man impressed the narrator because throughout most the story he never see’s past the fact that Robert is
When it comes to the sexual facet of his wife, he is protective of her even when sitting with a man with is incapable of valuing her physical appeal. For instance, when his wife fell asleep on the sofa, “she’d turn so that the robe had slipped away from her legs, exposing a juicy thigh. He reached to draw her robe back over her, and it was then he glanced at the blind man… he flipped the robe open again.” One may note that through these actions, the possessive side of that narrator is revealed only when his wife is physically vulnerable, though when it comes to her sincere intuition expressed through her passion of poetry, the blind man values her feelings that are exposed through the meaning of the text unlike her husband, who “doesn’t think much of the poem” or any poem because he does not recognize the worth of any mental object, such as thought, only the benefitiful physical ones. Through the use of an extended metaphor, Carver explains that “he just doesn’t understand poetry” much like he doesn’t understand the blind man, who does not gather wisdom by visually perceiving the world around him. The main character’s reliance on an ocular reality is further exemplified when he attempts to “imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her
From the beginning of his tale, the husband is quite bland on the subject of love. This is present when he tells the part about his wife's first husband, even going as far as to say the man doesn't deserve to be named because "he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want" (348). When he tells of Beulah, Robert's wife, and her tragic death, he shows no compassion in mocking her for marrying a blind man. He even asks if the woman was a "Negro" because of her name. His materialistic views shine through when he feels actually pity for her because she could "never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one" (349). His lack of compassion for the tale of the blind man's marriage tells the reader that maybe the husband himself doesn't believe in love. When he refers to his wife's first husband as "this man who'd first enjoyed her favors" and "shrugs" when he thinks his wife is disappointed in his actions, it informs the reader he may look at relationships, even his own, as more of a business deal than a devotion of love (348, 350). His wry humor is major indication of his sarcastic character. He even makes a crack to his wife about the blind man befo...
In the first paragraph, the narrator also reveals his ignorance. He believes that all blind people are based on only what he has seen in movies, "My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they are led by seeing-eye dogs “(104). The narrator was surprised when he noticed Robert was not like this. The narrator is also surprised when Robert lights a cigarette. He believes blind people don’t smoke because “they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled” (108). The husband starts to feel more comfortable after this. The three of them sit down for dinner and the husbands is impressed with the how Robert is able to locate his food, cut with a knife, and eat properly. This is where the narrator’s outlook starts to undergo change.
The husband's view on the world at the start of the story was a narrow one that was based on his ignorance, which prevented him from gaining understanding. His long held misconceptions, especially about blindness, defined his expectations about things he did not understand. For instance, when the husband found out that Robert was coming to stay, he disliked the idea of someone who was blind, let alone someone who he didn't know, coming to visit and the husband's "idea of blindness came from the movies." He saw the blind people as people who "moved slowly and never laughed." This was not the limit of his ignorance as it was further displayed by his constant referral of Robert as "the blind man" and his assumption of Robert's deceased wife being a black person based solely on the name of Beulah. This assumption display his bigotry is not limited to Robert's blindness and that differences that he did not understan...