In Raymond Carver's short story, "The Cathedral", we follow the narrator as he unknowingly describes his own prejudice, in which he is prevented from appreciating more than meets the eye and eventually begins to understand that he is the one who is blind and dissatisfied through his interaction with a blind man. The metaphors of bound men, found in Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave", can be linked to the ignorance and prejudice of the dissatisfied narrator of "Cathedral", since the bound men suffer from literal blindness and the narrator of "Cathedral" suffers from a metaphorical blindness, both of which will lead them away from the truth and distort their perception of reality. Carver uses jealousy, prejudice, and substance abuse to develop a character, similar to the bound prisoners, devoid of self-fulfillment and figuratively blind in his relationship to the world around him. The narrator's jealous nature begins immediately in the story. and continues throughout. This jealous attitude towards the blind stranger is pervasive and he cannot understand the qualities of the relationship between his wife and the blind man or why his wife has continued this friendship. As the narrator describes what led to the meeting between the blind man and his wife, she purposely omits her ex-husband's name by asking, "why would he have a name?" which implies that this man also does not matter (Carver 356). The emphasis is placed on the last experience the wife had with the blind man, almost suggesting that their relationship may have gone beyond friendship. It is only at the end of the story that the narrator no longer fears Robert's relationship with his wife. The narrator's wife sleeps in her dressing gown,...... in the center of a sheet of paper... on the qualities he is trying to translate. His view of the literal world around him has failed him; now he must resort to the tactile language of the blind. Through the interaction between touching the hands and drawing the cathedral, the narrator's blindness is revealed and he no longer feels connected to his world. Carver uses the themes of jealousy, prejudice, and substance abuse, not only because most readers can easily associate with one or more of these issues, but also because they can be used to create a character who is ignorant and detached from the world that surrounds him. This blindness to reality can be linked to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", where prisoners are limited in their world to only what they can easily see. Reality may not be quite what we are presented with as there may be a world that many do not see.