Peter Theofilos November 30th, 2012
Seeing With Eyes Shut
The concept of isolation has been time and time again proven to take its toll on the human body and mind, where detachment, selfishness and blind views and beliefs on our world are some of its many effects in the everlasting abyss of darkness that is ignorance. “The blind leading the blind” is in direct association with this statement as well as Carver’s “Cathedral”, where it is a staple in the overall understanding of the story, as well as the development of the timeless themes around it. Throughout the evolution of the events in the story, it is very clear that Carver implicates a detailed message that revolves around the destructive nature of isolation, which greatly affects the narrator’s state of mind, as well as his selfish and stereotypically-driven perception of his own constructed reality. To further explain this inevitable claim, we must analyze the causes and consequences of isolation, with regards to the narrator’s mind-frame, all while experiencing his graceful blossoming of his overall character.
First and foremost, it is quite evident that being mentally blind, as far as what Carver is attempting to get across, has nothing to do with the very basis of vision, but it is rather an ironic aspect in which the author introduces to the narrator’s egotistical and ignorant state of mind that has shaped the way he somewhat “sees” the world. We immediately get a sense of his stereotypical nature through “idea of blindness [that] came from the movies. […] [He believed that] the blind moved slowly and never laughed.” (Carver, p. 119) The narrator is not only shown to be closed-minded, but he is terribly susceptible to influences of popular culture. With that being said, it is also apparent that he cannot think for himself, as he relies on movies to create his fake...