Stereotypes In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

In the story of “Cathedral” written by Raymond Carver, there are three main characters: The protagonist, his wife, and wife’s blind friend, Robert. The story tells about that the protagonist, who has only tunnel vision, has been living in loneliness everyday that he cannot even notice himself before he meets his wife’s blind friend, Robert. After the protagonist meets Robert, he learns naturally how to communicate with other people through the conversation between him and Robert. At the end of the story, through drawing the cathedral together, the protagonist starts to commune with Robert with a sincere heart, not just pretending to be honest and opens his real eyes that broaden his perspectives on the world. In this work, the author tries …show more content…
That’s’ good.” Through his complimentary remarks, Robert obviously encourages him not to relinquish drawing the cathedral. Ironically, the blind person takes the role that vivifies and makes the person, who is actually able to see with his physical eyes, to realize the huge thing that is surely freed from his hidebound stereotypes. In this regard, the story of the cathedral makes modern people to consider who the real blind person is regardless of physical eyes. The scene shows that Robert who has just a little defect physically helps the protagonist who can clearly see. After they finish drawing the cathedral together, the protagonist finally feels that it’s really something. Therefore, even though he completes drawing, he keeps closing his eyes because he experiences self-transcendence that leads him to break his conventional ways of thinking. When he closes his physical eyes, he rather experiences real something through the situation that he is not able to see. It means that he opens mental eyes that allow him to have a different view of the world, only when he closes physical eyes. This kind of experience does not come from enlightenment of the god or any religion, but it is caused by the person who does not believe in any religion and seems to be weaker than others. The author tells us that people who have the same scars in their mind can help each other, and people who have the sight are able to get the strength to live from the people who have no sight. Those little dramatic situations guide modern people exactly to the answer that the real blind person is who closes his or her eyes of the mind which has no any wisdom to look at the life for the question about which person is the real