The mention of Robert’s visit created the husband’s outward animosity. Not only was he slightly resentful but he was also very uncomfortable. In his explanation of how his wife and the blind man met, he recalled a personal moment between the two in which the blind man asked if he could touch her face and neck and, upon doing so, left her enthralled by the experience. His jealousy protruded when he attempted to make his wife feel inferior for having a blind friend. His wife explained to him that any friend of his that came to visit would feel at home, to which he responded, “I don’t have any blind friends” (22). His lack of sensitivity was merely a display of his jealousy and rejection to her friendship.
More obvious than his resentment was his uneasiness of the fact that Robert was blind. Before Robert arrived, the husband was outward with his rudeness by telling his wife, “Maybe I could take him bowling” (22). The thought of Robert actually married to a woman was quite conflicting for the husband:
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. […] She could, if she wanted, wear green eye-shadow around one eye, a straight pin in her nostril, […] no matter. And then to slip off into death, the blind man’s hand on her hand, […] her last thought maybe this: that he never even knew what she looked like, and she on an express to the grave. […] Pathetic. (22-23)
His apathy towards the actual loss of Robert’s wife confirmed his bias against him and blind people in general.
At the climax and end of the story, the husband reached an epiphany and understood Robert’s life and his wife’s feelings toward “the blind man.” When the husband could not do justice to a verbal description of a cathedral, Robert persuaded him to describe it on paper. With Robert’s hand following his, not only did he describe the cathedral, but he also underwent a sense of enthrallment similar to that of his wife’s previous experience. Finishing the last of the masterpiece with his eyes closed, Robert asked him what he thought of the picture they had drawn.
’Well?’ he said. ‘Are you looking?’
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. (33)
He experienced the same fascination that his wife did upon meeting Robert. In the blink of an eye, he understood Robert, and ,perhaps more importantly, he understood a perspective of all blind people. This profound impression changed the husband from a close-minded stereo typist into an enlightened artist.
