"Cathedral" Short Story Blog Post 7

Brief Summary: So, this story has three characters which are the narrator, his wife, and his wife's blind free. Basically the blind man's wife had died and he is going to meet with the narrator's wife at her house and the narrator is reluctant to have the blind man over.

1. The narrator is not looking forward to the visit of the blind man because he resents the relationship he has with his wife and he disturbs him.
2. I think it is possible to read the wife's experience of the blind man touching her face as to being able to be "seen" by him because she believed that he could see her anyway through her emotionally and when he touched her she felt it even more. I think her writing poetry after that experience related to her desire to be seen because she believed that she wasn't truly being "seen" in her marriage like she was when she talks with the blind man. 3. And I think this had to do with her attempted suicide culminated from feeling lonely in her marriage and separated because of her ability to not be able to "see'. I think receiving another's friend means that you are able to accept new things and accept other people and be friends.
4. Although he could not see her physically, I think Robert could see Beulah emotionally in the same way he could see the narrator's wife. What it means to see and to be seen are two different things.  The story has a great theme of this concept. A blind man goes into a narrow minded house and opens his eyes. Before the blind man came the narrator could only see selfishly even though he can physically see. In other words he could only be seen because he was blinded by his own mentality, and Robert made him be able to see in a different way.
5. I think the characters smoke pot because the author wanted to showcase the positive and negative possibilities of smoking weed. Negative because of the effects of the drugs but positive because from smoking together, they were able to form a bond that led to them drawing the cathedral together.
6. What the churches reveal about what the culture thinks about God, is like a cathedral which promotes accepting new people and new ideas.
7.  The narrator has difficulty describing a cathedral because he is not religious. What he sees when his eyes are closed at the end of the story is a deeper understanding of himself and his life, and he realizes he doesn't need to open his eyes to "see" it.