Cathedral Questions (Homework Assignment #7)

                The narrator’s wife was anticipating a visit from an old friend named Robert who is blind. Her husband, the narrator, is jealous that Robert is getting all of the attention of his wife. He makes it his duty when Robert comes to visit to let his wife know that he’s jealous and that he doesn’t appreciate her doing that to him. But during Robert’s visit, the narrator begins to have sympathy for him and actually befriends him.

1.       Why was the narrator not looking forward to the visit of the blind man? What do his feelings reveal about his character?

a.       The Narrator was not looking forward to the visit of the blind man because he knew how much his wife liked his company over his own and began to feel jealous about that. His feelings about Robert reveal that his character isn’t very open-minded and is selfish. He doesn’t want any of the attention of his wife to go anywhere but him and notices that Robert makes her happy and he doesn’t want him to. The narrator wants to be the only one in his wife’s life that makes her happy.

2.       Is it possible to read the experience the narrator’s wife had of Robert touching her face as an experience of being “seen” by him? How is her writing of poetry related to her desire to be seen? How does her attempted suicide also relate to her desire to be seen?

a.       It is possible to read the experience the narrator’s wife had of Robert touching her face as an experience of being “seen” by him. Since Robert couldn’t physically see, feeling the texture and shape of objects is the next best thing for him to sort of visualize an image in his head of what it could look like based on how it felt. Her writing of poetry is related to her desire to be seen because poetry is a way of expressing herself. Her attempted suicide is cry for help, a cry for everyone to pay attention to her because she feels like no one cares.

3.       What does it mean to receive another’s friend? Consider: “‘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’” (359).

a.       To receive another’s friend is to be friendly and accepting towards them. Don’t push them over and ignore them because you don’t want to be friends with them when you don’t even know the person. In the story, the narrator’s wife just wants her husband to be accepting of Robert because he means a lot to her.

4.       Consider page 360. Contrary to the narrator’s response of pity and disgust, do you think that Robert “saw” Beulah? What does it mean, more deeply, to see and be seen?

a.       Robert did “see” Beulah. Beulah was everything to him and because he couldn’t really base his love off of looks. He truly loved her for who she was as a person. He understood her like no one else could have because he didn’t have the distraction of how she looked to get in the way of his love for her. That is what it means to be truly see someone, to be able to connect with them because how they think and what their personality is like. Vice versa to be truly seen by another person.

5.       Why do the characters smoke pot? What does it reveal of their desire?

a.       The characters smoke pot because there was a lull in the conversation and one of them suggested they do. It reveals that their desire is based on how happy they feel because of the pot they smoked. The drug provides them with a temporary high and they feed off that high to feel happy because they think that’s the only way they can ever feel happy.

6.       “In the olden days, God was an important part of everyone’s life. You could tell this from their cathedral-building” (372). What do churches reveal about what the culture thinks about God? Why?

a.       Churches tell us especially in homilies that the media is controlling everything, controlling what everyone wants and needs because of commercials and advertisements that are plastered everywhere we look. The church tells us that the media is getting God out of the picture completely because it’s true and we sometimes look past that and put our faith in God on the back burner.

7.       Why does the narrator have difficulty describing a cathedral? What does he see with his eyes closed at the close of the story? Why?  

a.       The narrator has difficultly describing a cathedral because he doesn’t know exactly what to say to Robert because he’s blind and hasn’t ever seen a cathedral before in his life. So how could the narrator be descriptive of a building to person who has never seen what one in reality. When he closes his eyes at the end of the story he sees what Robert is seeing. He is finally understand the true meaning of life and opens his eyes to the world that surrounds him.