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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. .
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,
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
In the story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, the main character, goes through a major personal transformation. At the beginning of the story, his opinions of others are filled with stereotypes, discrimination and prejudice. Through interaction with his wife's blind friend Robert, his attitude and outlook on life changes. Although at first he seemed afraid to associate with a blind man, Robert's outgoing personality left him with virtually no choice. During Robert's visit, he proved to be a normal man, and showed the speaker that by closing his eyes, he could open his mind.
In the eyes of the narrator, Robert’s blindness is his defining characteristic. The opening line of "Cathedral" reads, "This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night" (1052). Clearly, the narrator cannot see past Robert’s disability; he dismisses him in the same way a white racist might dismiss a black person. In reality, any prejudice—be it based on gender, race, or disability—involves a person’s 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 short story “Cathedral'; includes three characters. These characters include the narrator, his wife, and her blind friend Robert. Early into the story, the narrator expresses that he possesses many stereotypes, these stereotypes keep him “blind'; from the true reality of blind people. The narrator says “My idea of blindness came from the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs.'; This explains where the narrator originally gains his misconceptions of blind people. The narrator’s wife tells him that Robert will be visiting for the weekend. Once Robert arrives at their home, the narrator is shocked to find out that Robert doesn’t wear dark glasses, carry a cane, and is wearing a full beard. Throughout the story some of the narrator’s stereotypes are erased. Howeve...
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966. 369-372. Print.
...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 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.
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
The husband in Raymond Carvers “Cathedral” wasn’t enthusiastic about his wife’s old friend, whom was a blind man coming over to spend the night with them. His wife had kept in touch with the blind man since she worked for him in Seattle years ago. He didn’t know the blind man; he only heard tapes and stories about him. The man being blind bothered him, “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. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to. (Carver 137)” The husband doesn’t suspect his ideas of blind people to be anything else. The husband is already judging what the blind man will be like without even getting to actually know him. It seems he has judged too soon as his ideas of the blind man change and he gets a better understanding of not only the blind man, but his self as well.
In the story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, it tells of how a blind man is open to new experiences and how he views the world compared to the husband (narrator) who is blinded by the material things of life. The husband is given the gift of sight but the true gift comes from seeing the cathedral. At the beginning of the story, the husband’s outlook on others is filled with stereotypes, discrimination, insecurities and prejudice. After interacting with Robert, his wife's friend, his outlook begins to change significantly.
Constantly throughout the short story, Robert defies the narrator’s original portrayal of what he believes is a stereotypical blind man. “He also had a full beard. But he didn’t use a cane and he didn’t wear dark glasses. I’d always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind” (Carver 36). Robert also starts to change the narrator’s perception of blind people not only physically but emotionally. In an act of thoughtful accommodation, the narrator begins to describe to Robert the cathedrals on the television when the speaker of the program halts the commentary. Robert starts to slightly and gradually change the perspective that the narrator sees blind people from until the conclusion of the story when Robert shines a light on the
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.