The Theme of Blindness in the "Cathedral" by Raymond - Essay Example

According to Hemmingson, dirty realism is a school of writing which famous in the 1980s. (5) Dirty realism focuses on middle-class citizens writing, especially on harsh realities, heartbreaks, and ordinary life disappointments. Raymond Carver was one of the popular writers of that period who utilized dirty realism to write his books. Cathedral is Carver’s short story that utilizes this writing approach to tell 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 purpose of the Cathedral is to convey through simple language and symbols the extraordinary moments when they open their eyes.

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Cathedral is a story told by the husband of an unhappy couple. The narrator is a prejudiced man with complete knowledge of blindness. This metaphor is exposed through a conversation that the narrator has with Robert, who is physically blind. Nonetheless, the story takes an unexpected and significant run when the narrator realizes that his perspective about blind people is wrong and biased.

The unknown narrator in Cathedral, because of his prejudices regarding blindness, prevents him from having a meaningful conversation with Robert. Before Robert visits them, the narrator confirms his stereotype when he says that Robert's blindness bothers him, and that his unwelcoming attitude towards the blind comes from movies he has watched. For instance, in one of the movies, the blind was spotted moving slowly and never laughed. Such movies mind his claim. 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. In other words, the narrator believes that Robert is socially inferior because of his physical disability.

Nonetheless, the person that literary blind, according to Cathedral, is the narrator. The narrator seems to be living happily, but a close analysis of his life shows that his life is filled with several ‘disabilities’ to escape the reality of his life; he admits to consuming drugs'

"I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could…My wife and I hardly went to bed at the same time" (Carver p.61). Because of outside influences on him from the world, the narrator is not used to being as open-minded as the readers would like him to be. Moreover, the narrator has become insensitive to his wife presently; he recalls how the bond was strong among them when they were cashless, but as soon as they became stable in life, love vanished from their home.

Upon the arrival of Robert, the narrator engages him in a 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 is annoyed by these questions and decides 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 answered that he sat on the right side, and it had taken him almost forty years to travel by train, he goes to the extent of explaining that he was with his friend when he first traveled by train and ends his response with a self-deprecating question. The blind man's response was excellent and polite it was indirectly challenging the view the narrator had towards Robert's blindness. Further, the response cleared the atmosphere to a healthy conversation.

Robert's physical blindness does not mean that 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. However, the blind man manages to beat all the odds around him and find a way to start a conversation with his host. When the two men were left alone in the living room, Robert requested to join the narrator in smoking cannabis with him, but the narrator could still not pick a dialogue with Robert. Robert did not give up, and he decided to share his sad story of how he used to love her though ended up dead in the hospital, the narrator still is cold and seems to be in a comfort zone.

As the two watched a television program, the blind utilized this moment to engage the narrator in a conversation when he asked him to describe what the television program was all about. The narrator is reluctant to fulfill what the blind man has asked him, and he responds, "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 what 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 draw a portrait of a cathedral. The act of drawing from the story's 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 realizes he is missing a lot, and the blind man's world is colorful.

The narrator comments, “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 changed. Since her wife experienced the same change, she was defending the blind man as his husband verbally attacked him.

After reading this story, one could also believe that after the narrator's encounter with the blind man and his life-changing experience, he had been living like that for many years before. One event, such as what happened in the story, may not have been enough to alter the narrator's tenets. This would completely refute the notion of enriching experiences through anomalistic choices.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Cathedral by Raymond Carver is a story with a moral lesson. It teaches that isolation is not an inherent feature of the blind as frequently portrayed in the media. In a society guarded by norms, a blind man strays from the perfect; the language he uses is not part of the cultural norms. For a blind man to communicate effectively with the narrator, he must use a foreign approach to the normative culture.

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.