American Literature

The Cathedral by Raymond Carver is one of the most well known short fiction pieces of the 20th century. This story tells the tale of an unnamed man faced with a visit from one of his wifes friends. This friend is blind, and the narrator appears to dislike him because of the possibility that there was some romantic attachment at some point between the blind man and his wife. How the narrator truly feels about the blind man is questionable since he responds to him in a way that appears to be either related to jealousy over the blind mans relationship with his wife, or prejudice against those different from him. It can be argued that that the narrators treatment of the blind man is a combination of both jealousy and prejudice, and that this jealousy and prejudice sets the tone for the entire story.

    This tone is set in the very beginning of the story when the narrator begins talking about how the blind man is an old friend of his wifes. The narrator states He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were guided by Seeing Eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.  This demonstrates that much of what the narrator knows about the blind is based off of stereotypes promoted by the media. The narrator has false ideas of the mental and physical capabilities of the blind, and has limited understanding of what it is to be blind.

    There is also a sense of jealousy apparent in the narrators words. The blind man was friends with the narrators wife long before the narrator married her. This can be seen in the section of the story where he talks about the poem that his wife wrote about the blind man learning what she looked like by touching her face. The narrator states When we first started going out together, she showed me the poem. In the poem, she recalled his fingers and the way they had moved around over her face. If one reads between the lines, one can sense that this statement was said in a tone of jealousy. The narrator is jealous of the moment of intimacy shared between his wife and this unknown blind man.

    The narrators wife has little patience for petty jealousy and prejudice. She feels that despite his blindness, and despite the fact that that narrator is jealous the narrator should treat the friend as he would treat any other friend of his wifes. She confronts him by stating Are you crazy my wife said. Have you just flipped or something Whats wrong with you Are you drunk  The wife then explains to the narrator exactly the reason why the blind man is visiting, since his wife just died, and he needs to be around friends while he is grieving.

Although the narrator begins to develop an understanding of what happened to the blind man, and begins to understand the situation a little better, the tone of prejudice against the blind man remains. For instance, the narrator thinks to himself And then I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman who could go on day after day and never receives the smallest compliment from her beloved.

The narrator only seems to account for his own jealousy, and prejudice against the blind man. His tone remains prejudicial, and he says things out of petty jealous. He seems to have little understanding of the fact that the blind man and his wife loved each other and chose each other because of that love. In fact, this prejudice continues when the blind man arrives at the narrators home and the first thing he thinks is This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard A beard on a blind man  This tone of prejudice and jealousy indicates that the narrator is simply unwilling to change his mind in any way about the blind man, and he appears to act in a very discourteous manner towards him.

The narrator is confronted with is prejudices when he realizes that the blind man didnt use a cane and he didnt wear dark glasses. He sees his prejudices destroyed but the jealousy remained. This jealousy grows worse when he must sit and listen to a conversation between his wife and the blind man. The narrator thinks to himself I waited in vain to hear my name on my wifes sweet lips And then my dear husband came into my lifesomething like that. But I heard nothing of the sort.

    This jealousy and prejudice gradually dies away as the narrator comes to realize that this man is just a man like any other, grieving for his lost wife. They spend evening together, watching television, drinking, and smoking marijuana and find out that they share many commonalities including an interest in history. The blind man senses the narrators, jealousy and prejudice and makes every attempt to extend the hand of friendship to the narrator. This is seen in the scene where the blind man states No, Ill stay up with you, bub. If thats all right. Ill stay up until youre ready to turn in. We havent had a chance to talk. Know what I mean I feel like me and her monopolized the evening.

    As the two men talk the narrator realizes that many of his ideas about what blindness is, are false, and he finds that he gets along quite well with the blind man. The story ends with the narrator attempting to describe what a cathedral looks like to the blind man, and he discovers through drawing a cathedral for the blind man that the blind see with their hands and fingers. The narrator states
 I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldnt stop. The TV station went off the air. I put down the pen and closed and opened my fingers. The blind man felt around over the paper. He moved the tips of the fingers over the paper, all over what I had drawn, and he nodded. 

    Cathedral shows the reader that prejudice and jealousy are in and of themselves a form of blindness. People do not realize what they are missing when they view the world through the lens of prejudice and jealousy. When the narrator takes the tone of prejudice and jealousy towards the blind man he does not realize what his wife sees in her friendship with the blind man, and he does not realize what a wonderful person and friend the blind men can be.

    Cathedral also demonstrates that people can change. The narrator starts off with a sense of prejudice and jealousy against the blind man, but, over the course of the story he comes to see the blind man as a person, and not just a blind man. This causes him to change his opinions, and by the end of the story, he tolerates the blind man even if he does not genuinely like the blind man.

    It can be concluded that prejudice and jealousy go hand in hand in the short story Cathedral. The narrator of the story is both prejudiced against the blind man because of his own ignorance about the blind, and jealous of the blind man because he fears the blind man has feelings for his wife. This story also demonstrates that prejudice and jealousy can be overcome, if people take the time to listen, and to get to know those that they are prejudiced against or jealous of.