Raymond Carver’s Cathedral

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”. the conventional ideas often associated with blindness and sight are challenged. Although the title suggests that the story is about a cathedral it is really about two men who are blind, one physically the other psychologically. One of the men is Robert, the blind friend of the narrators wife, the other is the narrator husband himself. The husband is the man who is psychologically blind. Carver deftly describes the way the husband looks at life from a very narrow minded point of view. Two instances in particular illustrate this, the first is the husband seems to believe that the most important thing to women is being complimented on their looks, the second is that he is unable to imagine his wife’s friend Robert as a person only as a blind man. As the story progresses, we can see a change in the husband he seems to be able to see Robert as a person and not just as a blind man.

One example that shows the husband is “blind” comes in the beginning of the story, before Robert arrives. When the husband and wife talk about Robert, the husband usually refer to him as “this blind man” and he never uses Robert, name or assigns any human attributes to him. This shows that the husband does not really see Robert as a person, but just as a blind man who is different because he has a handicap. When Robert arrives at the couples house, the husband does not know what to say to him, The husband asks stupid questions about the view from the train. He asks, “Which side of the train did you sit on?”. The husband knows that Robert cannot see the view but he asks him these questions anyway. Also, the husband thinks to himself, “I didn’t know what else to say” which is a clear indication that he does not know how to relate to Robert. Both of these quotations show that the husband does not know what to talk about with Robert because he only sees Robert as a handicap, instead of seeing him as a complete human being who as emotions, thought, ideas, and beliefs. I come to see some semblance between my idea of an assuring affinity told by the husband, only referred to as “Bub”. Although not blatantly apparent is the husband’s love for his wife, he does who it with a bit of jealous disposition. When referring to his wife’s ex-husband, he purposely neglects to even give the guy a name as a result of his envious attitude, “Her officer-why should he have a name? He was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?”. Beside jealousy, he also expresses many other emotions of typical loving husband such as protection, affection, consideration and hurt, with regards to his wide’s relationship with her friend Robert.

As the story