Symbolism In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

Blindness is defined in the dictionary in a word, sightless. The blind people’s life is extremely hard. They have to cope and adjust to be a part of the society. They have to depend on their other senses to explore the world around them. The good thing about it is they learn to use their other sense better than other people. Raymond Carver’s Cathedral is set in the days when the switch from black and white to color television was in its early stages, and when cassette tapes were a cutting edge technology. The story took place in his own house in one evening. A good friend of Raymond’s wife visited their house named Robert. Robert is a blind man who is in his late forties. He is a balding man with stooped shoulders and a full beard. Robert also …show more content…
Raymond’s life is simple. Raymond is one of those people who is happy staying at home, watching television and drinking beer. Raymond does not realize the limitations he has placed to himself and prevented him seeing the greater things in life. That evening when Robert visited, Robert and Raymond were watching television while drinking and smoking dope. The only channel that was on air was about a church and the Middle Ages. The TV show they watched showed a famous cathedral in Paris, Portuguese, Germany, and French. Raymond apologized for what they are watching. Robert's openness to new ideas and knowledge is further illustrated when he tells Raymond, “It’s fine with me. Whatever you want to watch is okay. I’m always learning something. Learning never ends (Carver 96)”. Raymond then started to describe what the cathedrals look like. Robert does not have a good idea about cathedrals, so he asked Raymond if he could describe the cathedral for him. Raymond finished describing the cathedral by saying, “The truth is, cathedrals don’t mean anything special to me. Nothing. Cathedrals. They’re something to look at on late-night TV. That’s all they are” (Carver 99). This signifies that he has a hard time analyzing the deeper significant of the cathedral. Robert had an idea and asked Raymond for a piece of heavy paper and a pen. Robert placed his hand over Raymond’s hand and asked him to draw a cathedral. Robert then asked Raymond to close …show more content…
Robert’s act of listening made the wife happy and his presence changed Raymond’s perspective in life. Looking and seeing are two different things. The act of looking is related to physical vision while the act of seeing requires a greater level of engagement. Robert represents seeing, the ability to see beyond the surface to the meaning that lies within. True seeing, as Robert demonstrates, involves a lot more than just looking. The fact that the story did not say anything about Robert’s response to the wife’s tapes. It signifies that the mere act of listening is more important than responding to them. The important thing about Robert is not that he is blind, but rather that he is a person who works with what he has to create the best life he can for