This week, we had to write a short essay based on our reading and understanding of the narrator of the story "Cathedrals" by Raymond Carver. I found the individual somewhat high-minded and insulting in the beginning, but came to understand him as misguided and ignorant as the story progressed. The story begins as his wife invites a blind gentleman named Robert to stay with them for a while. The wife and Robert have history together, because she used to care for him. The husband resents this seeming intrusion in his life, and has already made up in his mind what this gentleman will not only look like (cane, dark sunglasses, and no humor), but how he will sound (old, mournful, pitiful).
It is during a program on cathedrals that the narrator recognizes that he is the blind one as his perception of his visually impaired visitor is challenged and he realizes that he is spiritually ignorant. So the blind man comes to help him to find his spirituality within himself. He metaphorically closes his eyes to take it all in, to allow the realization of his own mental blindness to cause him to change.
I really enjoyed reading this story, because it showed that what we thought we knew about certain things can be challenged, and we may have to come to a new understanding.
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