The Cathedral starts out by the narrator introducing a blind
man who is coming to stay with him and his wife. The way he describes this
visit has no excitement in it whatsoever. He tells the story how his wife and
the blind man met year before, and how they had always kept in touch. He seems
bitter and jealous about the blind man coming to stay at his home; a stranger,
who he has only heard of from his wife, who is blind. His stereotype of this
blind man was very generalized, and he liked to joke about it in a very dry, sarcastic
way, that was funny to his wife. He could see that his wife was very tense
about her friend coming, she wanted everything to be perfect and that made the
narrator jealous. He didn’t seem happy with his life, he didn’t seem totally in
love with his wife and listening to her get excited about her friend coming
wasn’t helping.
When Robert, the blind man, finally comes he becomes very
skeptical. How was this blind man normal?
Throughout the story, he slowly becomes comfortable with Robert, finding
out that they have a lot in common. He slowly begins to see that Robert was
just like any other human being.
Another view of a person that changed for the narrator was
his wife. I think he came to the realization that he didn’t know a lot about
her. She was almost a totally different person when Robert came, and he learned
that he seemed to know more about her than he did, and I think that also
brought upon a lot of bitterness and jealousy about Robert.
Robert and the
narrator are different in many ways, especially in the way they view things.
The narrator is really negative and selfish, where Robert views things on a
more positive and free spirited level. The narrator is very stubborn, he feels
that what he already knows in life is good enough for him, where Robert, who is
much older, still strives to learn whatever he can.
A very distinct similarity between the two characters is
that there is a sense of loneliness. The narrator is too laid back, he doesn’t
see outside his little world that is all about him. He loneliness is more of a
mental loneliness. He doesn’t seem to have the best relationship with his wife,
which he mentions when he says that they rarely go to bed at the same time, and
that he always sits by himself to smoke and drink late at night. The blind man
is also alone, but in a more physical way. His wife has passed away, and all he
has left is his blind old self.
The narrator and the blind man truly connect at the end of
the story, when a TV program comes on about cathedrals. When Robert asks him to
describe what the cathedral looks like, the narrator is able to step into his
shoes, and view a world where everything comes from your own image. There was
such beauty and significant detail in describing to Robert what a cathedral
looked like, and then for them to draw it together with no sight. I think the
narrator got a sense of joy here, he felt alive though he could not see with
his eyes close. He saw the world as Robert saw it, with beautiful and
significant detail. It also portrayed the darkness’s both felt in their life.
Robert’s world was literally dark, and the narrator’s was dark in the sense
that he had no passion for anything; he was alone and had a dark and cold soul.
Comparing that to cathedrals, they have a dark sense to them. But they are also
so beautifully built that you can’t help but see the beauty in the dark, cold,
and empty feeling you have about them.
