Barnett J.M. Barnett ENG 102 Prof. McVeigh 28 November 2005 On Cathedral In 1983, Raymond Carver sat down to write a book of short stories entitled Cathedral. One of the stories, also with the same namesake, is about a cynical, bitter narrator who, from the first paragraph, makes it very obvious he is not pleased with a blind man visiting his wife saying, “He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me.” It is this prejudice that shows most, the narrator’s tragic flaw: While it is the blind man, Robert, who cannot see, it is the narrator who is unable to see the world around him. Instead of seeing the actual person that Robert was, the narrator focused primarily on the one attribute that made the Robert different: his blindness. When the wife falls asleep, she leaves the two men watching a television show about cathedrals, unnoticeably forcing them to get acquainted in a most eye-opening, memorable way that gives the title new meaning for the reader. The narrator has much to say, and most of it is very unpleasant. The narrator’s language and distasteful tone, paint a picture of an unhappy, self-centered, jealous person
