Lack of Vision in the CathedralThe narrator of Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" is not a particularly sensitive man. I could describe him as self-centered, superficial and selfish. And while his actions certainly speak to these points, it is his misunderstanding of the people and relationships presented to him in this story that most clearly shows his tragic flaw: while Robert is physically blind, it is the narrator who cannot see the world clearly. around him. In the narrator's eyes, Robert's blindness is his defining characteristic. The first line of “Cathedral” reads: “This blind man, an old friend of my wife, he was going to spend the night” (1052). Clearly, the narrator cannot see beyond Robert's disability; he fires him the same way a white racist might fire a black person. In reality, any prejudice, whether based on gender, race or disability, involves a person's inability to rise above a superficial quality. People who judge a person based on such a characteristic only see the particular aspect of the person that makes them uncomfortable. They don't see the whole person. The narrator has unconsciously placed Robert in a category that he describes as abnormal, which prevents him from seeing the blind man as an individual. The narrator's reaction to Robert's individuality shows his stereotypical views. The narrator assumed that Robert did not do certain things simply because he was blind. When he first saw Robert, his reaction was simple: “That blind man, notice this, he had a full beard!” A blind man's beard! Too much, I say” (Carver 1055). When Robert smokes a cigarette, the narrator thinks: "I... read somewhere that blind people didn't smoke because, according to speculation, they were... middle of paper... and optimistic." " (Watson 114). The few critics who have written specifically about "Cathedral" tend to focus on this optimism, visible at the end of the story with the narrator's "aesthetic experience [and] realization" (Robinson 35). By focusing on the final "realization" experienced by the narrator, the literary community has neglected his profound misunderstanding of everything that has consequences in life. The narrator's prejudices make him emotionally blind. Beyond Robert's disability prevents him from seeing the reality of any relationship or person in the story and even though he admits that some things are simply beyond his comprehension, he is unaware that he is completely blind to the reality of the story. Works Cited Carver, Raymond. “The Harper Anthology of Fiction.”, 1991. 1052-1062.