In the short story Cathedral by Raymond Carver, we are introduced to a story about a man’s wife and her friend who is blind. The husband is obviously uncomfortable with the idea of this man, not only staying in his house but also with his blindness. Earlier in the semester, we read Disability in Theory by Tobin Siebers and in his paper, he talked about disability, social constructionism, and people’s negative outlook on impairment. In the short story, it was clear that the husband’s perceptions of blindness were influenced by social construction. Not only did he strictly refer to his wife’s friend as “the blind man”, but as we read the story we notice just how uncomfortable the husband is when it comes to disability. This ableist man is compelled to recognize that there are other bodies besides the able body.
Before the speaker met Robert, he couldn’t understand how he was happily married due to his blindness. He felt bad for him and then, in turn, felt bad for the woman because Robert would never see her and compliment her appearance. Later on, when the husband meets Robert in person he was immediately put off by the man’s appearance and his judgments got the best of him. “He also had this full beard. But he didn’t use a cane and he didn’t wear dark glasses. I’d always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wished he had a pair”(Carver 217).
The husband’s misconstrued idea of blindness was proven wrong as soon as he was introduced to Robert. He didn’t look like the stereotypical blind person the husband had pictured him as, and later on in the short story, he finds out that this man is more similar to what he would consider normal and exceptional. Like any other person, Robert openly smokes and drinks regardless of his blindness which succeeds in leaving the husband dumbfounded. He originally assumes that if you’re blind you can’t smoke because you can’t see the smoke. The man being uncomfortable with Robert not wearing glasses forces the husband to come face to face with his impairment. In fact, Robert wearing or not wearing glasses has nothing to do with the husband and in no way does Robert have to present his body in a way that appeases him.
Tobin Siebers discusses how “people easily perceive when someone is different from them but rarely acknowledge the violence of their perceptions”(Siebers 174). It wasn’t until much later when Robert was forced to acknowledge Robert’s blindness one on one, that he stopped perceiving him as someone lesser than him. Even though I don’t agree with the idea that temporarily blinding yourself allows you to truly understand blindness, the exercise he did with drawing the cathedral did help him communicate with someone he had a hard time connecting with. The short story in its entirety showed disability through the eyes of the able-bodied person. Not only are we looking through the lens of someone who is dependent on his own views of disability. When he is finally introduced to someone who isn’t of the “exceptional body” he is taken aback and has to interact with someone who is different from him.
Word count: 540
I pledge: Kenzie Ward
Works cited:
Siebers, T. “Disability in Theory: From Social Constructionism to the New Realism of the Body.” American Literary History 13.4 (2001): 737-54. Web.
Carver, Raymond. “Cathedral” web.
