Examining faith through Raymond Carvers short story `Cathedral`

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4 /7 /06

It Was a Blind Man Who Taught Me How to See : An Exploration of Faith Regained in Raymond Carver 's Cathedral

The short story Cathedral ' by Raymond Carver is perhaps best understood as an allegory . On its surface , the story is about one man 's discomfort at being confronted with a person afflicted with a disability he does not understand , only to ultimately overcome this initial uneasiness by finally learning how to accept the blind man he was at

first so loathe to welcome and even try to walk in his shoes ' so to speak . And yes , this is certainly the stripped-down structure of the plot , but to say that this is finally a story about a man coming to grips with his fears of the Other ' is to grossly undermine the much quieter , much less obvious subtextual currents of one man 's grappling with the greater questions of purpose and meaning , a personal struggle with a bitter lack of faith that really belies an intense yearning for it . This is what Cathedral ' is : an exploration of one man 's resistance to , and finally , embracing of , faith

In the beginning of the story , our unnamed narrator makes no effort to conceal his extreme distaste for this blind man ' he is about to play host to - and every time the term blind man ' is uttered by this narrator , it is uttered as if he were verbally spitting , as if it were a euphemism for an expletive so heinous he can 't even repeat it internally . Our narrator will not dignify this blind man ' with a name it is not until his wife says it that we finally see this blind man ' in a more humanized light , with a name and all . But from the very beginning , it is clear that the narrator treats all elements of his life in this manner , with this kind of private disgust that he himself cannot fathom . In fact , this deliberate refusal to dignify the blind man with a first name is actually seen , and much more outwardly so elsewhere in the story . Towards the beginning , when the narrator is recapping the history of his wife 's relationship with the blind man , he references her husband before him . This man he also refuses to name and even states as much : Her officer - why should he have a name ? he was the childhood sweetheart , and what more does he want ' As if to say the man does not deserve to have a name , but for what reason ? In both instances here , with both the childhood sweetheart ' and the blind man ' we see how the narrator reacts to the other men in his wife 's life - like a jealous teenage boyfriend . And again this kind of juvenile jealously manifests in the narrator 's telling of the story when he relates the conversation between his wife and Robert , the finally-named blind man : I waited in vain to hear my...