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A weakness does not make a man weak. It is the man who chooses to allow a weakness to make him feeble. Faced with two different dispositions the characters, Robert, from Cathedral, and Prufrock, from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, handle life’s obstacles with two different approaches. Robert, a born blind man, doesn’t allow his inability to see stop him from seeing the world. His blindness actually allows him to “see” and understand people better then if he did not have a visual impairment. On the other hand, Prufrock was born with no physical enablement, but he allows his small frame full of insecurities to make him a weaker man. He does not have the strength to endure the outside world because he is stuck living in a pitiful self-loathing world.
Robert is a strong man who does not allow his visual impairment to stop him from having a real life. The narrator tells us that he works for a social-security department. The fact that Robert has a job like this lets the reader see that he is a hard workingman. When the narrator listens to his wife and Robert catching up he learns that Robert has actually done a lot of things in his life. This is discussed when the narrator recaps, “Robert had done a little of everything, it seemed, a regular blind jack of all trades.” (Page 83) His disability doesn’t hold him back from being successful. Robert does need more assistance then others in his position. He needed to hire someone to read his cases to him, which is how he meets the narrator’s wife. Robert appreciated everything that the narrator’s wife did for him and built a relationship with the narrator’s wife. This is established when the narrator says, “They became good friends, my wife and the blind man” (Page 77). The formulatio...
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...attempt to sing to him and lure him in like they would a brave sailor. He knows in his life he is just like a Shakespearean Fool. A man who over thinks and their presence are scarcely welcomed. His repugnant thoughts leave him unable to face the world or even open up and allow himself to see the world as it truly is. He just ends up paralyzed by his own thoughts, unable to attend a social event because he deems himself unworthy.
The power of the mind can create a hero or slowly kill a man from with-in, and it is up to the individual to choose the direction of the mind.
Works Cited
Carver, Raymond. Cathedral: Stories. New York: Knopf, 1983. Print.
Elliot, T. S. "T. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. .
Carver provides an easy, visual outlook of the protagonist throughout the short story, which helps keep a better understanding during the simple yet intense experience. As the story continues, the protagonist enhances his mood as he aids Robert to visualizing a cathedral. This experience creates an impact on others because it is a great reason to why one should never judge someone of something beyond their controls. Also, helping someone, as Robert does for Bub can be a life changing experience. Despite the blind man being physically blind, the husband is the one with the disability to see from someone else’s perspective. This is proven through his epiphany during his portrayal of being blind. Although Bub is not physically blind, he interprets a shortage of observations. This shows that in many ways he is blinder than Robert. Robert is more open minded and willing to experience things, in contrast to Bub, who is narrow minded and has problems opening up his mind throughout the short story. Because the protagonist does not fully try to understand his wife, it makes him look like the blind person ironically though he can visually recognize her, proving that he does not truly know her inside and out. Knowing her personally is more of reality and the husband is blind to reality. Carver definitely analyzes the protagonist’s emotions through diction and visual aid throughout the story, providing great understanding of the meaning as a
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.
From the beginning of the story, and throughout most of it until the end, the narrator makes comments about his dislike for blind people. He is unwilling to meet Robert, his wife’s friend of 10 years because he can’t see. The narrator is so fixed on his physical handicap that it makes him unable to try and get to know Robert’s character at all. His
...l of open-mindedness. “Cathedral” concerns the change in one man’s understanding of himself and the world. From the start of the story the narrator is restricted in his understanding to accept the blind man just as his wife has. He cannot fully wrap around the idea of what makes Robert so special. Until, that is, that the narrator starts drawing the cathedral which starts off as a house almost, and expands into something grander. This short story allows us to realize that the world is greater and further detailed than what we consider it in our confined minds. And that in fact we should never assume that there is nothing more to what the eye can see. It simply states that we shouldn’t form an opinion on someone or something based only on what you see on the exterior, because usually after taking the time to explore, the person or thing will not be what you expected.
The limitations that were holding the narrator back were abolished through a process from which a blind man, in some sense, cured a physically healthy man. The blind man cured the narrator of these limitations, and opened him up to a whole world of new possibilities. Robert enabled the narrator to view the world in a whole new way, a way without the heavy weights of prejudice, jealousy, and insecurity holding him down. The blind man shows the narrator how to see.
The short story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver is about a woman who has a blind friend who comes to visit her and her husband. Although the husband has, technically, normal vision he is in the beginning of this story the one who is "blind." Through the husband’s words and actions when he is dealing with Robert, the blind man, we can see that the husband does not "see" or understand what Robert’s blindness means or how it changes or does not change him as a human being. At first Robert makes the husband very uncomfortable, for the husband does not know what to say or do around the blind visitor. As the story progresses, we can see a change in the husband; he seems to be able to see Robert as a person and not just as a blind man.
The narrator does not address Robert by his full name, he address him “this” blind man instead of a blind man. Carver allows the reader to make the assumption that “this” blind man is of great importance to the narrator. “This” also conveys a direct relationship between the narrator and Robert even though they have never met, it also has a slight hint of arrogance to it (Peterson).The narrator has a pessimistic view of Robert before he ever has a chance to have a discussion with Robert. The narrator’s education on blindness “came from movies” (32) and he stereotypes all blind citizens as someone who “moved slowly and never laughed” (32). The narrator has a negative view of himself and it rubs off on him before his initial meeting with Robert. The narrator clearly is was passionately in love with his wife early in their relationship and she clearly loved him. The narrator is very protective of her and no amount of money could part them from love. The narrator backs this up by saying “She didn’t have any money. The man she was going to marry at the end of the summer was in officers’ training school. He didn’t have any money, either. But she was in love with the guy, and he was in ...
...personal and compassionate relationship with the blind man. The author throughout the story never gives the narrator or his wife a name. However the blind man is given the name Robert. This gives the blind man more identity then the narrator. He has a name, a history, and compassion that the “narrator” simply did not have. By the end of short story the narrator overcomes his prejudices of people that are different than him, and finds himself.
In the beginning the narrator’s tone is derisive, as though he’s mocking Robert’s being blind. The narrator sees Robert as a nuisance, getting in the way of him and his wife, whose past relationships with Robert and other men seem to irritate the narrator. “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed…A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to,” (Carver 1). The narrator is inexperienced
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996. 2459-2463.
Many people view blindness as a disability, but could these people be blind to their surroundings? Even though the narrator can perfectly see with his eyes, he lacks in understanding awareness. The narrator blindness isn 't physical, like many vision impaired people. His blindness is psychological, and his blindness causes him to become jealous. His blindness blocks his perception of viewing the world in a different way. This only causes him to see the physical attributes of humans, and thus shut off his mindfulness of viewing human personalities. As a result of a closed mind, the narrator doesn 't understand how Robert was able to live with the fact that he was never able to see his wife in the flesh, but the narrator fails to see that Robert vision of his wife was intimate. On the other hand, Robert blindness is physical. This causes Robert to experience the world in a unique manner. Without Robert eyesight, he is able to have a glimpse of a human personality. He uses his disability to paint pictures in his head to experience the world. By putting his psychological blindness aside, the narrator is able to bond with Robert, and he grasps the understanding of opening his eyes for the first time, and this forms a new beginning of a
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
In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the husband's view of blind men is changed when he encounters his wife's long time friend, Robert. His narrow minded views and prejudice thoughts of one stereotype are altered by a single experience he has with Robert. The husband is changed when he thinks he personally sees the blind man's world. Somehow, the blind man breaks through all of the husband's jealousy, incompetence for discernment, and prejudgments in a single moment of understanding.
This theme goes hand in hand with the theme portrayed in Hills Like White Elephants. In the story the narrator, whose name is never mentioned, has something against his wife’s blind friend, Robert, due to the fact that he cannot see. Robert visits the narrator and the narrator’s wife for company. It seems that the narrator had a preconceived idea that all blind people are boring, depressed, stupid, and are barely even human at all based on the fact that they cannot see the world. Robert, although he is blind, is a caring and outgoing person who is extremely close with the narrator’s wife. The fact that Robert is extremely close with the narrator’s wife should be reason enough for the narrator to accept him as a person, but he is a cold and shallow person with no friends. His relationship with his wife is lacking good communication and seems very bland. Robert’s wife recently passed away, but their relationship was deep and they were truly in love with each other. The narrator was blind to how a woman could work with, sleep with, be intimate with, and marry Robert as has he talks about how he felt sorry for her. The narrator is superficial and does not understand true love or
The title T. S. Eliot chose for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is ironic. Mr. Prufrock does not love anyone, nor does he believe he is loved. He has disdain for the society of which he wishes he were a part, and he believes society views him no differently. The imagery of Mr. Prufrock's thoughts provide the audience a more detailed insight into his character than had Mr. Eliot simply listed Mr. Prufrock's virtues and flaws. Mr. Prufrock is seen as an exaggeration or extreme for the sake of literary commentary, but the world has many Prufrocks in many differing degrees, and T. S. Eliot has made them a little easier to understand.