The Blind Leading the Blind The Short Story “Cathedral” is a literary work written by Raymond Carver and told by a narrator who is apprehensive about a visit from his wife’s blind friend. The narrator’s wife has been touched by Robert, the blind visitor, and he helps the narrator sketch a “Cathedral” which symbolizes his wife and teaches the narrator how to see, esteem, and touch her.
By and large, the presumably sighted narrator focuses on his guest’s blindness and outward appearance, but Carver illuminates this lodger’s extraordinary ability to touch the heart despite his disability, which demonstrates the theme of this story; “Looks may be deceiving. ” The narrator’s wife was the first to experience Robert’s unlikely ability to touch. She answered an ad to assist him which read, Reading to Blind Man” (1).
She believed the blind man needed assistance, but she was really the one needing support.
At the time, she was the depressed housewife of her childhood sweetheart, who was inattentive and apparently “blind” to her suicidal condition. Carver illustrates the wife’s cry for help in the advertisement that she answered to become employed by Robert. This sign also exemplifies the relationship this woman has with her current husband, the narrator, because after reading her poem, he is also mystified and unimpressed by her emotions. Conversely, Robert’s insight was exhibited by Carver who writes, “Robert felt every inch of her face and it impacted her so tremendously she attempted to describe the experience in a poem.
The Term Paper on Carver’s Cathedral Critical Perpective
I reviewed a collection of literary criticism on Carver’s Cathedral, a collection of short stories written by Carver which was published in 1983. One that stood out to be in particular was James W. Grinnell’s criticism on Carver’s Cathedral works. Grinnell wrote his review in the winter of 1984, and went on to say many things about Carver’s work. Grinnell mostly praises Carver’s work and his ...
Carver writes, “…they’d keep in touch, she and the blind man” (1).
Looks are deceiving in this instance, because the wife of the narrator’s expression in the poem is drawn out and then ascertained solely by the man that is presumably blind. The theme of the story is also exhibited when Carver leads readers to believe the narrator and Robert have no connection, but the narrator is unexpectedly touched and enlightened by the visitor that he prejudges.
Carver describes in great detail the disdain that the narrator has for blind individual and the pity the narrator feels for his recently deceased wife. The narrator states, “Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one” (Carver 2-3).
The narrator cannot see that the relationship he describes in this statement is the one he has with his wife. Furthermore, the narrator’s jealousy of the relationship Robert has with his wife is illustrated in this story by his constant need to reiterate she is “his” wife, his wife’s ontinuous accommodation of Robert and contempt for him, and his statement, “They talked of things that had happened to them- to them! – these past ten years” (Carver 4-6).
The narrator resists his jealousy by throwing his wife’s robe open, but Carver demonstrates Robert’s masculinity by illustrating his constant manipulation of his beard, which is the symbol for virility. The narrator’s wife also underestimates Robert’s ability to connect with the visionless narrator and is jealous when he communes with her husband. Before she falls asleep she asks, “Which way is this going? and she awakes and repeatedly exclaims, “What’s going on? ” (Carver 6-10).
