Response paper

I think that Carver does follow up on his own advice in the story of the blind man. The tension and the sense of menace in Cathedral is the blind man in the story. This story would easily be a boring one if the blind man is not present. Just the presence of the “blind” man brings about many other thoughts that we imply to almost stereotype him. The blind man is definitely like a big elephant in the room that we try and not to make too many assumptions about. And i think that because we try and not to make assumptions, we are changing the way we read the story. I wouldn’t expect any blind man to accept smoking marijuana. However, this blind man starts smoking like he has done it for years. He also has more than an occasional nights worth of drinks. I also think that Carver tries to create more tension when he writes about how the blind man and the narrator’s wife exchange tapes throughout the story. The relationship between the blind man and the wife of the narrator is clearly more than just a friend. Who exchanges tapes between each other for over a year? The wife decides to play her husband a tape where the blind man talks about him and just about when the blind man begins, the door knocks and we never really get to find out what the blind man is about to say. The story ends in a weird way when the narrator is asked if he is looking at the painting he just drew and he didn’t feel like opening his eyes. He just sits there with his eyes closed and the blind man has no clue if his eyes are open or not.