The blind man said, ‘We’re drawing a cathedral. Me and him are working on it. Press hard,’ he said to me. ‘That’s right. That’s good,’ he said. ‘Sure. You got it, bub. I can tell. You didn’t think you could. But you can, can’t you?
Starting to trust Robert, almost sensing a connection.
I think this is a very important part as we start to see a change in the narrator's actions and mindset.
‘Keep them that way,’ he said. He said, ‘Don’t stop now. Draw.’
constantly stating "He Said" indicating that the narrator is no longer demanding but rather now is listening and just like the wife he see's the blind man as simply just a "person".
Breaking that "STIGMA"
So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.
Spending time with Robert is slowly making him realize his ignorance.
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,’ I said.
The narrator starts to feel a slight connection towards the blind man, Robert. Starting as someone who was ignorant and stubborn, he is now accepting and understanding.
‘Bub, it’s all right,’ the blind man said. ‘It’s fine with me. Whatever you want to watch is okay. I’m always learning something. Learning never ends. It won’t hurt me to learn something tonight. I got ears,’ he said.
While the narrator see's Robert as just a blind man, Robert see's the narrator as a friend even after just meeting him showing earnest respect.
It’s funny, but if I turn the TV on, and I’m always turning it on, I turn on the colour set. It’s funny, don’t you think?’
This is actually really funny.
I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled. I thought I knew that much and that much only about blind people. But this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one. This blind man filled the ashtray and my wife emptied it.
Such ignorance is probably due to the lack of information and depending on false sources that stigmatizes blind people.
I’ve never met, or personally known, anyone who was blind. This blind man was in his late forties, a heavy-set, balding man with stopped shoulders, as if he carried a great weight there. He wore brown slacks, brown shoes, a light-brown shirt, a tie, a sports coat. Spiffy. He also had this full beard. But he didn’t use a cane and he didn’t wear dark glasses. I’d always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wished he had a pair. At first glance, his eyes looked like anyone else’s eyes. But if you looked close, there was something different about them.
Critiquing Robert for his looks. Seems to have a stereotypical mindset on how someone who is blind should look, when yet that is harmful and discriminating.
‘I feel like we’ve already met,’ he boomed.
Unlike the narrator ( husband ), the blind man views him respect regardless of not knowing how he looks, whereas with the narrator he treats the man completely different, only viewing for his disability.
It was beyond my understanding. Hearing this, I felt sorry for the blind man for a little bit. And then I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved. A woman whose husband could never read the expression on her face, be it misery or something better. Someone who could wear makeup or not – what difference to him? She could, if she wanted, wear green eye-shadow around one eye, a straight pin in her nostril, yellow slacks and purple shoes, no matter. And then to slip off into the death, the blind man’s hand on her hand, his blind eyes streaming tears – I’m imagining it now – her last thought maybe this: that he never even knew what she looked like, and she on an express to the grave.
I believe that this is not only ableist, but a very dangerous mindset to have thinking that people with disabilities cant have a successful love life.
Connecting this to the documentary, Crip Camp is also not only delved into the issue of disabled people being seen and respected but also demanding to live the same lives as those who are non-disabled which includes love lives and having families.
‘Was his wife a negro?’ I asked. ‘Are you crazy?’ my wife said. ‘Have you just flipped or something?’ She picked up a potato. I saw it hit the floor, then roll under the stove. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she said. ‘Are you drunk?’
Not only does the narraator present ableism but he also makes racist comments about the blind mans wife...this reminds me of an article we've read by Simi Linton, "Claiming Disability" where she mentions both of these issues.
Claiming Disability, Knowledge and Identity., courses.washington.edu/intro2ds/Readings/Linton-Chap1-2.pdf. Accessed 11 Sept. 2025.
‘If you love me,’ she said ‘you can do this for me. If you don’t love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit. I’d make him feel comfortable.’ She wiped her hands with the dish towel.
The wife is aware of the narrators ignorance and disrespect towards the blind man and believes that like anyone he should show some respect.
She and I began going out, and of course she told her blind man about it. She told him every-thing, or so it seemed to me.
Because of her respect and deep bond with the blind man she is able to fully trust him. Shows that she doesn't see the man for his disability but rather who he is as a "person".
Anyway, this man who’d first enjoyed her favours, the officer-to-be, he’d been her childhood sweetheart. So okay. I’m saying that at the end of summer she let the blind man run his hands over her face, said goodbye to him, married her childhood etc, who was now a commissioned officer, and she moved away from Seattle. But they’d kept in touch, she and the blind man.
Very much an ignorant behavior, he clearly shows no respect at all and pretty much pity the blind man.
I can connect this to the "Pitiable Freak Trope" from Against Techno ableism
Maybe I just don’t understand poetry. I admit it’s not the first thing I reach for when I pick up something to read.
Signs of the narrator's ignorance...
My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing eye dogs. Blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.
"Bitter Cripple" trope: The narrator only is aware about blindness through media such as movies and replicates his ignorance rather than actually being educated.
She hadn’t seen him since she worked for him one summer in Seattle ten years ago. But she and the blind man had kept in touch.
The narrator's wife seems to have genuine connection with the blind man, almost like full respect towards him which is enough to consider her to continue close bond.