A different kind of blindness

(This is an essay about Raymond Carver's short story Cathedral. Please read the great short story before reading my text so that you can make yor own visualisations and observations: Cathedral)

In the short story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver a blind man, a friend of the narrator's wife, comes to stay in the narrator's home. The blind man's wife has died. The narrator is unconsciously jealous because the strange man is so close with his wife; they met years ago and have been recording their thoughts and feelings and kept sending the tapes to each other. The relationship between the main character and his wife may not be very close. They are married and with most probability they are used to each other's company but it seems that they don't have very much trust to each other. If they had, the husband wouldn't be so suspicious about the guest.
They eat dinner, drink and use some cannabis. The wife and the blind man are naturally relaxed when they are together, but the protagonist acts uncomfortably when the blind man is around. He has strongly rooted predictions about the blind and when the guest doesn't fill his expectations he's amazed and irritated. He has thought the blind always wear black glasses and carry a cane. And how come a blind man has a beard? He is stuck in his own little bubble where everything has its precise place. If something doesn't fit his schemes it's concidered weird or even hostile.
In addition to the literal blindness, the short story also deals with a different kind of blindness, the blindness that most people suffer from. This blindness is called the fear of the unknown. Being afraid of new things makes us build stereotypes which help us to outline our own world but when it comes to real situations with real people the stereotypes work as a brick wall. This brick wall between us and the rest of the world makes us unreachable for new experiences.
Later at night the wife falls asleep while the blind man asks the storyteller to describe him a cathedral. He has started to feel more familiar with the blind man so he accepts to do it. He starts to draw, the blind man draws with him and finally he closes his eyes, still drawing. At this part of the story the atmosphere is very intense: when the wife wakes up and asks what's going on, her husband shows no response. It seems as if he has found something out.
When the drawing is complete instead of opening his eyes the narrator opens his mind and really starts to see.