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Sometimes a person gets so caught up in their own life that they don’t have room in it for other people, and they carry along prejudices and stereotypes because they don’t want to take the time to learn otherwise. The short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is about a man who is very unhappy that his wife’s friend, a blind man named Robert, is coming to visit. When Robert arrives, and the three of them get a chance to visit, Robert broadens the narrator’s views in a very interesting way. The narrator changes from a reclusive, jealous person who stereotypes blind people to a person who begins to feel for the rest of humanity. We can assume from the narrative that the narrator does not have much of a life outside of his marriage, as he goes into great detail about every aspect of his wife’s life, all the way back to before her first marriage to her childhood sweetheart. He makes no mention of his own life except to say, “She and I began going out.” (773) As he takes every chance he gets to express his displeasure at the impending visit, his wife finally says, “If you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable.” He replied, “I don’t have any blind friends,” and she finished with “You don’t have any friends!” (773) I believe that from these statements we can be absolutely sure that he has no friends, as he didn’t deny his wife’s remarks. We can only assume that his lack of friends might enhance his prejudices, and be another underlying reason why he resents the visit by the blind man.
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