A short story titled, “Cathedral” was written by a author named Raymond Carver. The story is about a blind man coming to visit his friend. The story is written in the point of view of a husband of blind man’s friend.
Raymond Carver writes, “All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman looked like.” (275) I disagree with this sentence. The looks of a person should not matter to begin with. Men or women should not date their opposite sex based on their looks. I believe this is beautiful what this blind man had going on with his wife. Blind man cannot see how his wife looks like, so that means he fell in love with her based on everything but her looks. His wife must have loved him very much as well. It is hard to marry somebody who is blind and love him to the point to take care of him. The husband should change his way of thinking, because real love is not the outer beauty but the inner beauty. Second quote I came across was, “We ate everything there was to eat on the table. We ate like there was no tomorrow. We didn’t talk. We ate.” (278) This quote might have nothing to do with the story, but this was the quote that made me real warm and happy. I agree this is how meals are supposed to be eaten. You should not be picky with what you eat and eat everything on the table. You should eat like there is no tomorrow. Food is gift from above and it will be a sin not to enjoy what is given to you on the table. You should not talk when you eat. You have plenty of time to talk after you finish eating. When you are eating, you should just eat without any words from your mouth. This picture was perfect time at a dinner table and gave me a very happy feeling.
I would like to leave you guys with two questions to think about. Do you think being blind should effect how you love your partner? The husband in the story seemed like he was feeling sorry for the old man not able to see his wife’s face, but I disagree. What do you think? Second question is what is your definition of perfect dinner table? I believe that the dinner the family and the blind man had was perfect. However, people prefer different eating conditions and I would like to know what they are.
– Jeong Yoon (Brandon) Ryu