Lack of Vision in the Cathedral The 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 in this story that most clearly show 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 opening line of "Cathedral" reads, "This blind man, an old friend of my wife, was going to spend the night" (1052). Clearly, the narrator cannot see beyond Robert's disability; fires him the same way a white racist might fire a black person. In reality, any prejudice, whether based on gender, race, or disability, implies a person's inability to look beyond a superficial quality. People who judge a person based on that 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 he defines 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 didn't do certain things just because he was blind. When he first saw Robert his reaction was simple: "This blind man, characteristic this, wore a full beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say" (Carver 1055). When Robert smokes a cigarette, the narrator thinks, "I... read somewhere that blind people don't smoke because, according to speculation, they are... middle of the paper... and they are optimists." ” (Watson 114). The few critics who have written specifically about “Cathedral” tend to focus on that optimism, seen at the end of the story with the narrator's “aesthetic experience [and] fulfillment” (Robinson 35). Focusing on final "realization" experienced by the narrator, the literary community has overlooked his deeply held misunderstanding of everything that is important in life. The narrator's prejudice makes him emotionally blind the reality of any relationship or person in the story. And while he admits that some things are simply beyond his understanding, he is not aware that he is so completely blind to the reality of the world. Works Cited Carver, Raymond The. Harper's anthology of fiction. Ed. Silvano Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 1052-1062.