The Meaning of True Sight in "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver

The only thing worse than being blind is to have sight but no vision. To truly see something isn’t done alone with just the gift of sight it is done within your own mental capacity on how you view the world. You can have the gift of sight but to have vison is in the mind or the mind’s eye. It is a dynamic portion of our creative vision and helps us plan and think about our ideas. In the story Cathedral by Raymond Carver, there is a man named Robert who is blind and visits an old friend and During his stay at her home the blind man eventually forms this unusual bond with her husband. In the end Robert was able to help the husband gain a glimpse of true sight even though, he does not suffer from blindness. This story is the true definition of what having sight is truly about.

“Cathedral” is a short story by the writer and poet Raymond Carver. The story is narrated by a man whose wife has invited an old friend of hers to come to their home for a visit. The old friend whose name is Robert happens to be blind, which is how the narrator seems to defines this man throughout the story. The narrator admits to not being happy about the blind man’s visit even though he doesn’t seem to completely identify why, and from his actions it seems to probably be due to Robert’s disability. Robert’s wife had recently passed away so he has been staying in Connecticut visiting his wife’s family which happens to be where the narrator and his wife live. The narrator’s wife worked with Robert some time ago in Seattle. On the last day of her employment, Robert requested to touch her face and she agreed. As he did so, she felt a profound sense of closeness to him and it inspired her to memorialize the experience through her poetry. This seems to be where she becomes much more closer to the blind men and becomes inspired to write poetry.

His wife leaves to pick up Robert from the bus depot and when she returns the narrator is taken aback by how normal Robert looks. He was expecting Robert to be an old man with dark glasses and a cane. In cathedral when the wife is done cooking dinner, they all sit down to eat and the narrator watches Robert. The narrator says, “The blind man had right away located his foods, he knew just where everything was on his plate.” “I watched with admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat.” He’d cut two pieces of the meat, fork the meat into his mouth, and then go all out for the scalloped potatoes, the beans next, and then he’d tear off a hunk of buttered bread and eat that.” (Carver Pg. 6) in this moment the narrator begins to admire Robert’s dexterity and his ability to use utensils. Towards the end the two men sit down together watching a program about a cathedral and the Middle Ages. The narrator realizes that Robert probably has no idea what a cathedral actually looks like, and he attempts to describe it to him. He realizes that his description isn’t good enough, but Robert is patient and encouraging. Robert then asks the narrator to find some paper and a pen and suggests that they draw a cathedral together, He closes his hand over the narrator’s and tells him to go ahead and draw. Slowly, the narrator begins to sketch the outline of the structure. He is not a skilled artist but nevertheless, Robert praises his work and suggests that it must be surprising to the narrator to have such an experience as this one.

The narrator feels compelled to keep going to finish the drawing, even as the television program ends and his wife wakes up, curious as to what is going on. Robert remains encouraging through the artistic process, suggesting that the narrator add people inside the cathedral. He suggests that the narrator close his eyes and try to draw that way. Though he is hesitant, the narrator acquiesces. He finds that the experience is a deeply profound one, like nothing he has encountered in his life up until that point. Robert suggests that the drawing is probably done, and asks the narrator how it looks. Without opening his eyes, the narrator responds, “It’s really something.”

The story cathedral is a perfect example of what it means to truly see something. In this story the blind man Robert seems to be a very smart man who clearly never let his blindness stop him from doing anything he wanted to do. For example, Robert was blind yet worked as a ham radio operator. He had a wife that he cared for and was able to show love and she was able to receive it and feel it without ever being viewed and told how beautiful she looks. He never let his blindness get in the way of his daily routines. Robert was able to travel, eat, love and do anything he wanted to do. He had an Amazing insight of how life is perceived and he view’s people from within not from how they look. In “Cathedral,” blindness has a two-fold meaning. It represents both Robert’s lack of sight and the narrator’s more intangible failures of perception his inability to understand other people’s feelings and his inability to find meaning or joy in his life.

The narrator has this arrogance to him that shows his inability to truly see. In the story cathedral he doesn’t give his wife attention to make her feel loved, she writes poetry and her husband which is the narrator who doesn’t seem to have interest in it he even admits to never appreciating his wife’s written work. he also doesn’t seem to care too much about anyone or anything. His wife states he does not have any friends. In the beginning when the wife was preparing food for her friend Robert to come over the narrator says “Maybe I could take him bowling,” I said to my wife. She was at the draining board doing scalloped potatoes. She put down the knife she was using and turned around. “If you love me,” she said, “you can do this for me. If you don’t love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable.” She wiped her hands with the dish towel. “I don’t have any blind friends,” I said. “You don’t have any friends,” she said.” He seems to be very obnoxious and his wife seems to be dealing with it. There doesn’t seem to be a clear connection between the two. He is blind to what he has and doesn’t seem to see or care about how arrogant he is to his wife and other people like Robert. He also spends his time working and when he is home all he does is watch tv while smoking marijuana. In the story the narrator even confesses that he often goes to bed later than his wife, sitting by himself in the living room, stoned and having bad dreams. That is not a healthy relationship and shows how he doesn’t see what he has at home and doesn’t care too much about his wife and what she does. With him being able to see he still fails to actually use his sight. He shows how ignorant he is once the blind man arrives at his home. He is walking around blind to his surroundings and what matters around him.

Having vision means having survival instincts and the ability to see an individual’s ethics, morals, desires and imagination. To see is only the surface of our eye’s ability. Vision differs from eyesight and it represents the totality of a person’s mind. There is a will to see something or somebody thoroughly due to a mental, emotional search for truth and total comprehension. Part of being a visionary is seeing life all the way through. Vision allows an individual to have confidence, to be free of judgement and not constrained by shallow perceptions. No outside force can destroy someone’s vision unless the individual who possesses it allows something to destroy it. We all have a vision, but it is up to us as individuals to tap inside ourselves in order to actually see it through. Like Robert our eyesight can be stripped, our hearing can vanish, but our vision will live on forever inside our mind.

In the end of the story cathedral the narrator draws with Robert and the drawing seems to represent true sight, the ability to see beyond the surface to the true meaning that lies within. Before the narrator draws the cathedral, his world is simple he can see, and Robert cannot. But when he attempts to describe the cathedral that’s shown on television, he realizes he doesn’t have the words to do so. More important, he decides that the reason he can’t find those words is that the cathedral has no meaning for him and tells Robert that he doesn’t believe in anything. However, when he takes the time to draw the cathedral to really think about it and see it in his mind’s eye, he finds himself pulled in, adding details and people to make the picture complete and even drawing some of it with his eyes closed. When the drawing is finished, the narrator keeps his eyes shut, yet what he sees is greater than anything he’s ever seen with his eyes open. Just as a cathedral offers a place for the religious to worship and find solace, the narrator’s drawing of a cathedral has opened a door for him into a deeper place in his own world, where he can see beyond what is immediately visible.

In conclusion sight is not about being able to actually see things with our own eyes but to actually see things with our eyes closed. It’s a mental aspect that we all have to understand, you can view life one way but see it another way. You want to be able to perceive the world and your surroundings as well as people around you in different ways. its not about how they look, what raise they are and how they walk or talk. It’s about what’s in the inside of a person or the bigger picture in the world. The act of looking is related to physical vision, but the act to truly see something requires a deeper level of engagement and according to the story cathedral it is suggesting that Robert’s blindness has given the narrator/husband access to beauty and meaning that he never knew before.