In the short story Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, the reader is shown a middle-aged man and his psychological development as he meet an old friend of his wife's, a blind man named Robert. The man tells us the story from his point of view. We hear all his thoughts about the situation and the other people involved and because he tells the story we don't know his name. It's a contemporary history, it happens in out time, in New York. It's working class, neither rich nor poor.
             The leading character is a man with many prejudices – no matter what it is; when it's different than him he has an opinion about it.
             "She'd told me a little about the blind man's wife. Her name was Beulah! That's a name for a colored woman.
             'Was his wife a Negro?' I asked."
             "He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. 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."
             The above quotes show his prejudices towards people with a different skin colour and a handicap. Since it's his thoughts, it's the first thing that pops into his head and it's his honest opinion on people who are in one way or another different than him.
             He is a middle-aged man; he's married and a bit grumpy at times and always comes with these small negative words to every thought he has about Robert. Words like spiffy, creepy, pathetic, too much are all words he uses to describe his thoughts on Robert. His not happy about this man's visit, his wife's past with Robert annoys him and even after he's introduced to Robert, he still only refer to him as the blind man. He doesn't know how to act around Robert. He asks him how the train ride went, since it's important (for a seeing man) to sit at the right side, in order to see the most, but this of cause is not important ...