It is very often that humans judge other humans by what they look like. This is understandable in some sort because the first thing that comes out is one appearance. The first way of attraction is the appearance, and from there one can get to know the true person behind the face.
A great example of this is “The Cathedral”. The Cathedral explains how one prejudice/pre judging person reacts to someone that they do not know anything about. The story starts off with Robert a blind man coming to visit one of his great friends, although the husband of that friend is completely ignorant of not knowing anything about a blind person life. Although it is very evident that at the end of the story “Bub” understands completely what Robert feels and thinks by analyzing these series of events. At a specific point in the story, Bub gets a feel for Robert. He realizes a little bit that Robert is like anybody else. Bub offers Robert some weed and Robert accepts. Robert says, “ I do now, my dear. There’s a first time for everything” (426). This passage proves that Robert is like any body else. It shows that he can be a pothead to like Bub.
Robert asks “Bub” a series of questions about Cathedral thus showing that Robert does know what a cathedral might look like. After that Bub asks Robert if he knew what cathedrals are. Even though Robert heard it on the TV, he replied, “I know generations of families worked on a cathedral. The men who began their life’s work on them, they never lived to see the completion of their work” (428-429). By adding that piece of information, Robert to proves to Bub that he did know what they are, and how they are constructed in some sort.
Bub also learns that Robert is very understanding. Bud tries his hardest to describe what a Cathedral might look like. Bud says, “They are so big…they remind me of viaducts…they have carve devils, lords, and ladies” (429). Robert after this incident asks Bub to keep going showing that Robert has an understanding an encouraging personality. As well Robert is not afraid to do meaningful things that might seem a little weird to the norm. Robert asks Bub to get him a hard paper bad so they could draw the Cathedral. It was said “He found my hand, the hand with the pen, he closed his hand over my hand, Go ahead Bub, draw” (430).
This shows that Robert is wise in some sort. He is not afraid to do things to people that he doesn’t even know. He is willing to learn about other people if they are willing to learn about him. It shows that he is not different from one of us, Robert is exactly the same; although the ways that Robert reaches his objective might be a little different than the average persons. Robert must take the long way, in which he must really concentrate to understand a simple concept; such as a cathedral.
While drawing the Cathedral on the bag, Robert keeps encouraging Bub by saying “good”, “swell”, and “terrific”. Then in a wise notion, Robert asked Bub to close his eyes, but also to keep drawing. “Close your eyes now, I did it, Keep them that way” (431). Robert seem to want to educate Bub in a way only a blind man can do, he wanted Bub to feel what Robert was feeling, he wanted him to go through this drawing journey with him as if they were the same, the same person with the same disability. For someone who was very ignorant towards the blinds, Bub is feeling what a blind person feels; he is living a moment, a single moment that is something eternal for Robert.
By all of these series of events, this proves that Roberts is exactly like anybody else. Although instead of learning visually he has to rely on his aesthetics, touch, and a lot of hearing. Robert proves come out to be wiser than most people, but the reality is that he is just the same. Although his learning ways might portray him as a wise man. Bub now understands Roberts’s point of view on things, he understands what this man has to go through in order to understand a simple concept. Bub understands that Robert has to feel, he has to touch and analyze the motion of the hand so he can get an actual feel for the cathedral. All in Bub understand who Robert is, he now knows what this man has to go through, and that ha can relate in a sense because both of them had a time that they worked as one. By working as one Bub is in a higher state of consciousness, Bub does not want to open his eyes because he does not want that moment that he shared with Robert to end. He doesn’t want the point in time where he lost his prejudice to end.
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