Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birth-Mark, Raymond Carver’s...

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"The Birth-Mark†, Raymond Carver’s â€Å"Cathedral†, and Randall Kenan’s â€Å"The Foundations of the Earth† illustrate how arrogance undermines knowledge and individual power and humility enhances those qualities. In each story, characters with parochial worldviews encounter people who challenge them to change. Other perspectives are available if they are able to let go of their superior attitudes. For example, Hawthorne’s protagonist, Aylmer, believes he has the ability and right to create perfection. He views a birthmark on his wife, Georgiana, as evidence of a flaw that must be removed no matter what the cost. His assistant, Aminadab, (an earthy alter-ego) remarks, â€Å"If she were my wife, I’d never part with that†¦show more content†¦He is not inquisitive but rather put out as indicated by the phrase, â€Å"a blind man in my home was not something I looked forward to† (Carver 513). The narrator’s wife has been friends with this blind man for many years and clearly holds a divergent point o f view. â€Å"She told him everything† (Carver 515). â€Å"I saw my wife laughing as she parked the car† (Carver 516). The narrator sees the confidence, trust and joy that the blind man elicits from his wife. Why? What is it about this blind man that gives his wife joy? Similarly to Aylmer in â€Å"The Birth-Mark,† the narrator does not ask these obvious questions, questions that might crack him open, but instead remarks, when interrupted while listening to a taped correspondence from the blind man, â€Å"I’d heard all I wanted to† (Carver 515). Unlike Aylmer, however, the narrator, after imbibing Scotch and smoking pot, does open up to the blind man after watching a documentary on television about cathedrals. The blind man asks him to describe a cathedral to him. When this task proves difficult, the blind man suggests they draw one together. As the drawing progresses, the blind man asks him to close his eyes and draw. â€Å"His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.† The narrator experienced an epiphany. The tone changes from sarcasm to childlike awe. This ending combines an appeal to pathos and ethos; there is an emotional shift combined with credence gaine d