Cathedral Raymond Carver
Cathedral - Raymond CarverMost people know the common attributes of prejudice, but Raymond Carver takes the analysis of this flaw of human nature one step further and writes of how it affects the lives of its holders and their views of the world in a very profound way. There is a beauty that surrounds us all. However, sometimes it takes a dramatic event, a revelation, to make us see this. Raymond Carver gives his protagonist, the husband, this gift of sight in the story of Cathedral. The character of the husband is closed, subconsciously, to all the people and things that surround him. His prejudices keep him in the dark; they make him blind to new things and hold him in a rut of repetitiveness. Until at last, he is opened up to see the world by a blind man.
We can see prejudice in the husband’s character from the beginning of the story. The husband, or Bub as the blind man later names him, says that the blindness of his wife’s friend bothers him (Intro. to Lit, 184). He also states, “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.” Bub has a preconceived notion of the blind that he does not want to let go of; in fact he does not even want this friend of his wife in his
house. The wording he uses while bringing us up to date on the situation further drives our view of this closed mindedness home. He uses simple blunt sentences and an
almost disgusted tone when he refers to the blind man or his wife.
On her last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could
touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched
his fingers to every part of her face, her nose-even her neck!
She never forgot it (185).
He doesn’t care to see this blind man; he knows his kind, “they moved slowly and never laughed,” (184). He didn’t want this cripple, this Robert, to interfere with his lifestyle even for just a few days.
Robert, the blind man, was a piece of his wife’s past, a piece that Bub did not particularly want to have recalled and brought back up. A past husband, a past love and Robert, they were all in the same boat, they were all bad. He didn’t want to know about his wife’s past husband, and he didn’t want to know anymore about Robert. Bub won’t try to see Robert as a man he can learn from; he will only see him as a blind person, someone who is different.
However, Bub is later surprised. This blind man can carry on a conversation, he can eat a meal, he can enjoy television just like him. Bub begins to see Robert as more than just blind; he takes notice of his clothes,...
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