Conflict, defined as the opposition of two or more forces, remains the key ingredient in great stories. Conflict can be conveyed through an internal or external source, as well as one of these following forms: man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. supernatural, and man vs. himself. In Raymond Carver’s short story, Cathedral, the conflict is clearly man vs. himself. The narrator severely lacks sensitivity and can best be described as self-centered, superficial, and egotistical. While his actions certainly speak to these points, his misunderstanding of the people and relationships presented to him in this story present his biggest flaw. His wife’s friend, Robert, is physically blind. Though, I declare the narrator to be the one who cannot clearly see the world around him. The lesson in this great story is that one can never truly understand another’s situation, until you “walk in their shoes,” so to speak. In the eyes of the narrator, Robert’s blindness is his defining characteristic. In the opening of the story he states, "This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night (Carver, 34)." Obviously, the narrator cannot see past Robert’s disability; moreover, he dismisses him in the same manner a white racist might dismiss an African-American person. In reality, any prejudice, whether it is gender, race, or disability, involves a person’s inability to look past a superficial quality. People who judge a person based on such a characteristic only see the particular aspect of the person that makes them uncomfortable. They are unable to see the whole person. The narrator unconsciously places Robert in a category that he deems uncommon, which prevents him from seeing the blind man as an equal. The narrator’s reaction to Robert’s independence shows his stereotypical views. He assumes Robert does not do certain things, just because he is blind. When he first saw Robert his reaction was simple: "This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say (Carver, 37)." When Robert smokes a cigarette, the narrator remarks, "I . . . read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled . . . But this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nub