The Theme of Blindness in Cathedral - Essay Sample

Introduction

Cathedral blindness has a two-fold significance. First, it denotes Robert's lack of eyesight. Secondly, the narrator's incapability to comprehend other individuals' feelings and incapability to find joy in his life. In his pursuit of the symbolic meaning of blindness, Carver uses dirty realism to attain his goal. Hemmingson (5) affirmed that dirty realism is a school of writing that became in the 1980s (5). Dirty realism focuses on middle-class-citizens' writing, especially on harsh realities, heartbreaks, and ordinary lives' disappointments. Carver uses the tale of a blind man who opens the eyes of a spiritually blind man by helping him see the world through his perspective. The Carver uses dirty realism to convey the theme of blindness through a simple story that symbolizes the extra-ordinary moments that the narrator's eye opened to a new chapter of his life. Unlike other stories, the author leaves it to a reader to decide who is a villain or victim of any of his characters; it pushes a reader to go deeper into the characters' troubles to judge correctly. At the end of the story, a reader recognizes that passing judgment blindly on others is too simple.

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Ordinary People

The story begins in a simple way: "This blind man, an old friend of my wife's, he was on his way to spend the night."(Carver, 1). The characters are ordinary people, and they live in typical situations like most of the family live in society. Life denotes many common people experiencing family challenges such as alcohol, experiencing loneliness, estrangement, and disillusionment. With the help of the story character, Carver exposes dirty so that a reader can relate. Therefore, the story seems to be targeting a reader to achieve its objective.

A narrator is a prejudiced man who believes in society's misconceptions about blind people. The narrator's blindness is exposed through a conversation that he makes with Robert, who is physically blind. Before Robert visits, the narrator confirms his prejudice when he says that Robert's blindness bothers him; this unwelcoming attitude on the blind came from movies he had watched. For instance, in one of the movies, a blind was spotted moving slowly and never laughed. Therefore, he falsely believes all blind people are boring, and nothing special can come out of them; this makes him say, "a blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to" (Carver, 209). Although the narrator has never seen Robert, he has already developed a negative perception towards him. When Robert comes to his house, the narrator believes that he will behave the same as the blind mind he saw in the movie. Carver seems to be speaking thoughts of society through the narrator, and at this point, a reader feels the urge to support the narrator since blind people are considered ' boring.' Robert, in this case, represents society's perception of blind people. Before criticizing the habit of judging others, baselessly Carver ensures the narrator and the reader are on the same page with similar thoughts. In other words, he makes the reader ‘blind’ too.

Pointless Questions

A reader feels the narrator is writing when the narrator engages Robert in a simple and boring conversation by asking pointless questions. Some of the questions the narrator asks include, "Did you have a good train ride? […] Which side of the train did you sit on, by the way?" (215). These questions suit a child, and the narrator's wife was annoyed by these questions and decided to confront his husband to stop him from asking pointless questions. What is surprising is that Robert did not take offense; he answered all those questions with a more social awareness that the narrator did not expect from him. He responded that he sat on the right side, and it had taken him almost forty years to travel by train, and he goes to the extent of explaining that he was with his friend when he first traveled by train and ended his response with a self-deprecating question. The blind man's response is excellent, polite; it is indirectly challenging the view the narrator had towards Robert's blindness. The reader feels guilty for supporting the narrator and passing the judgment too early before getting to know Robert fully. Further, his answers clear the atmosphere for a healthy conversation.

At this point, the story presents a perfect point to prove the narrator's perception of blind people is wrong. Robert is physically blindness, but this does not mean he is socially blind too. He is a good conversationalist. If the narrator was aware of this fact from the past, he could have engaged the blind man in a more interactive conversation. He blind manage uses his skills and tricks until he has a meaningful conversation with the narrator, who was reluctant to engage with Robert in any serious talk.

As the two watch a television program, the blind utilize this moment to engage the narrator into a conversation when he asks him to describe what the television program was all about. The narrator was reluctant to fulfill what the blind man had asked him, and he responded, "How could I even begin to describe it? But say my life depended on it. Say my life was being threatened by an insane guy who said I had to do it or else" (224). The narrator cannot explain how the Cathedral discussed on the television looks like; he apologizes. Robert tries to find a way that the two can get to be on one page in terms of communication. He asks the narrator to guide his hand to draw the Cathedral that he cannot explain verbally. The narrator holds the hand of Robert, and together, they drew a portrait of a cathedral. The act of drawing from the story perspective offers a chance for to narrator to escape from his world of blindness and view life from a different viewpoint. In other words, the blind man's world. The narrator experiences a change in his attitude; he realized he is missing a lot, and the blind man's world is colorful.

Conclusion

The narrator says, "My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything." (Carver p.69). A reader at this point could believe that after the narrator's experience, his life has changed. Since his wife has experienced the same change, she defends the blind man as his husband verbally attacks him.

Carvers focus on the simple situation of day-to-day life by giving as its channel through which he criticizes society for judging people too soon without giving a deeper thought when passing judgments. In his story, he uses ordinary characters facing normal life challenges, giving a reader a chance to relate to the situation. The story ends up making a reader feel guilty for seconding the narrator's prejudice towards Robert baselessly. The reader ends up realizing the story of criticizing him rather than the characters in the book.

Works Cited

Carver, Raymond. Cathedral. Vintage, 2015.

Hemmingson, Michael. The Dirty Realism Duo: Charles Bukowski and Raymond Carver on the Aesthetics of the Ugly. Vol. 70.