Dynamic Character in Cathedral

...

never thought of.

Lastly, the narrator himself is characterized as a blind person. He never understood the meaning of understanding the things without seeing them but just using the imagination, as all blind people do. As he thinks at the end of the story, “But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do” (Kelly 76). Meaning that, at the beginning, he did not want a blind person in his house or to deal with him, but at the end he was closing his eyes as a blind person to see something bigger than visible things. He became more open minded and was very satisfied such as did not want to open them for a while. Secondly, he states,” My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything. It’s really something” (Kelly 76). In other words, just as a cathedral offers a place for religious to worship and find relief, the narrator’s drawing of a cathedral has put him in a deeper place, where he can see beyond what is visible. It makes him think about it and see it in his mind’s eye.

Our imagination is what makes us see and understand things deeper and much better. As the narrator from the story “Cathedral” is characterized as a very negative person at the beginning, he eventually changed to become a more open minded person. He’s unable to describe a cathedral, even though he sees it, because he cannot “see” its deeper significance. This let him look inside himself and understand the greater meaning, and truly see for the first time. After closing his eyes and seeing the world differently, he learns to understand the existence of equality between people. The cathedral that the narrator draws with Robert represents true sight, the ability to see beyond surface.