simply does not care, as it is not an unknown fact that people usually do not appreciate what they possess. The narrator has been blessed with the gift of sight, yet he is unable to see anything beyond the normal and physical level.
The character of the blind man completely contradicts with that of the narrator, because the blind man’ s lack of sight does not stop him from fully appreciating and living life. He has the ability to transcend because he sees things deeply and during the act of seeing deeply, he momentarily merges with the thing seen.“ When deeply seeing, the object of our contemplation enters our heart and mind directly. In the act of deeply seeing, we transcend the egoic boundaries between the self and the otherness of the world, momentarily merging with the thing seen”( Grey, 72). According to Grey, this is when the object of contemplation enters his mind and heart directly and he becomes one with the object of his contemplation. He is able to feel everything and see what others cannot see because of his utter perceptiveness and insightfulness. When the narrator asks the blind man whether he knows what a cathedral looks like, the blind man replies with a few vague statements he heard on the television, but then adds“ If you want to know, I really don’ t have a good idea”( p. 11). Even though the blind man has never seen a cathedral and has absolutely no idea what a cathedral looks like and the narrator’ s nebulous descriptions don’ t seem to be helping, he can still picture a cathedral. He may not picture it with all the intricate details of the architecture, but deep down, he feels what one must look like. This is depicted when he helps the narrator draw one, by gripping the narrator’ s hand and guiding him through the drawing process. The blind man is a mystical and phenomenal character. Despite his lack of sight, he is able to transcend the normal and the physical, he sees more than a person who can literally see, and he sees depth in everything in his life, including his relationships with others. This can be clearly noted in the blind man’ s relationship with the narrator’ s wife as he seems to
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