The cathedral is a story about jealousy and not fully understanding the situation. The narrator
( the husband) didn't want to form his own special relationship with his wife and was jealous of the one she had with a blind man. He towards the end of the story makes his own relationship with the blind man, as he learns to trust like the blind man has to. [ creates blind drawings] Lets now discover the in between of the story:
First off, he is so unhappy by the blind mans visit because he is jealous of the formed relationship. Because he has gone off in the air force he has missed all that time with his wife. One part of the story were he realizes a little he doesn't have to be jealous is when they are all on the couch and the wife is sleeping, her robe pops open. Immediately, the husband shuts it only to reopen it. He realized the blind man couldn't see. For that moment he felt superiority and had something the blind man would never have, sight of his wife. As un- humanly as that action may have been.
His opinion of the blind man changes over the course of the story. I think mainly because they are on drugs. Also, the blind man was willing to trust him and try something new. In the end when they are drawing a cathedral together, with what little material they have they are completely trusting. The blind man has never seen a cathedral before, but he can describe it better then the husband. Why is that? I think it's because he using intuition. He has a deeper meaning behind things. The husband only ever really sees the superficial meaning. The blind man with his small base of religion knows what the cathedral looks like because people , such as himself, like to look towards the Gods. So the cathedral was pointed upward.
In the end the husband starts too see the deeper meaning the blind man was able to show to his wife. He has a similar experience as his wife had to feel connected to the blind man. In the reading it says the blind man felt the wife's face, and she wrote a poem. Like she only does after something special has happened to her. The blind man leading the husbands hand in the drawing was like the connection between the blind man touching the wife's face. Could they be guided by something that couldn't even see where he was guiding them too? It was an act of faith. Which relates back to the medieval era and how they saw the gods.
Contrasting the blind man and the narrator:
Blind man-- can't see, loving, trusting, intuitive, needs other people, very capable, doesn't want to be a burden, smoker, willing to try new things.
husband-- smoker, willing to try new things, needs his wife, air force officer, moves a lot, does drugs to mask his feelings, can see
Similarities-- they both love the same woman, want to figure out who each other are and what the wife see's in both of them, needy, try's new things, learning to be trusting with each other
Just because they have a different way of perceiving the world, doesn't mean in the end they won't feel the same way about it.
A different image would have brought them together in the same way but not with the same meaning. Drawing a cathedral is already explaining something that is a higher then ones self. You know how the world perceives it and views it on T.V. . Now the blind man and the husband have to use their different way of viewing things to come out with the same conclusion or image.
Relating it back to medieval times it brought them all together. The artist from the medieval era had to base their ideas of what the Greeks and Rome had already created. There was a relationship there before hand, since the husband was the high school sweetheart, but he had to build more on what was already created. The cathedral of olden times was built of off a trust. They had to trust in each other what one couldn't already see.
The blind man and the wife have a long standing friendship because they weren't brought together by worldly things. They were brought together with the same place and cause. They trusted each other more then they trusted their spouses. The blind man and the husband is the BLIND LEADING THE BLIND.
The blind man is named in the story because he is the one who is bringing them together. He is like the person inside the cathedral that everyone is going to visit. They think this one thing or person will bring them towards a higher purpose, but really its themselves. The blind man has a name, because his life has found his meaning through his intuitions, unlike the husband and the wife who are LEADING EACH OTHER BLIND.
I restate, that everyone in a cathedral is looking to come towards something. They are all feeling a different thing, and all looking at art in a different way. Getting different meanings from what they see. Like all three characters in the book, they are searching. Only the blind leading the blind.
No comments:
Post a Comment