About the author
John Cheever was born on May, 27th in 1912. He was an American short story writer and novelist. He will be remained remembered by the works such as the short stories “The Swimmer”, “The Enormous Radio”, “Goodbye, My Brother”, “The Five-Forty-Eight”, “The Country Husband” and also by the novels “The Wapshot Scandal”, “The Wapshot Chronicle”, “Bullet Park”, “Falconer” etc. The main characteristics of his works are contrast in human nature, and also recollection, regret and sentimentality for a transience of life. He was awarded with Pulitzer Prize For Fiction in 1979 and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and in 1982 he was awarded with the National Medal for Literature by the American
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The cancer spread to his femur, pelvis and bladder. John Cheever died on June 28th in 1982 in Ossining, New York.
“The Swimmer” overview of the story
“The Swimmer” is the short story written by John Cheever and it is considered as one of his best short stories. It was published in the collection of short stories “The Brigadier and the Golf Widow”. This story is regarded as one of the best examples of Cheever's suburban stories. The story follows eight miles long way that Neddy Merrill tries to pass by swimming the pools of Westchester County. Neddy Merrill is represented as the main character of the story, whose retrospective of life is illustrated by swimming through the neighbor's pools. The plot of the story concerns the time passage and the main character's unawareness of the very same. At the begging of the story he is described as a happy, family man who lives the “American dream” but he ends up alone because he disregarded the
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The storm often symbolizes the financial problems which apparently appeared in Neddy's life, he lost his money and more important his family and house. Foremost important fact to indicate the passage of the time is the Neddy's physical condition at the begging and the end of the story. At the begging of the story the author uses the adjectives such as “slenderness of youth” (Cheever, 1964) to describe his physical appearance and “ inteseness of his pleasure” (Cheever, 1964) in order to illustrate his feelings. At the end of the story writer describes Neddy as someone whose “arms were lame and legs felt rubbery and ached at the joints” (Cheever, 1964) . This clearly shows that Neddy has become weaker and less flexible as time passed
Therefore, Ned had to learn from the ones that taught Ned to become a cattle thief and bush ranger. “As role models he had his uncle and cousin. If they taught anything, it wasn’t how to be an honest law abiding citizen. A dozen of his relative had criminal records.” (Wilkinson, 2002, p. 10). Just like what is expected Ned became a horse and cattle thief, but that didn’t last long. He was sent to prison for receiving a stolen horse that he didn’t know. After two years of hard life in prison, Ned decided to never go there again. Therefore Ned decided to get a job at a timber mill. Ned spent the last three years of hard work at his job, he was a trusted worker and overseer. Even so every time a horse or cattle went missing, the police would always blame it on Ned or his family. Some might’ve been true, but most of them were fake, yet regardless of true or false Ned still had to take the consequence. Nothing will change if he lived his life being harass. For this reason, he became a
John Cheever uniquely crafted the story “The Swimmer” by using a mix of surrealism and realism throughout the story. Most people when they read “The Swimmer” they have to reevaluate it to comprehend what is happening. The reason for that is because Cheever shifts between surrealism and realism so much that the reader does not even notice. The story starts out with Neddy being so strong and youthful, but as the story goes on he weakens and ages. When he was youthful Neddy decided to swim every pool in his neighborhood. As he ages and weakens, the pools get harder to swim and the seasons pass without him even noticing.
water, curved and smooth and green.'; This seems to illustrate the peacefulness of the situation, almost creating a lazy, calm atmosphere. However, the imagery within “The Swimmer'; is quite opposite. “The Swimmer'; tends to portray a scene of force, as there is no evidence of the peaceful interaction between man and water as found in “Lone Bather.'; Evidence of such force ...
John Cheever’s childhood was riddled with troubles and adversities. He was born in Quincy, Massachusetts on May 27. His father owned a shoe factory, but lost everything in the Great Depression. Cheever’s mother sustained the family through her gift shop. Cheever attended grammar school for seventh and eighth grade and then transferred to Thayer Academy for high school. He was a mediocre student, and was eventually expelled for poor grades. However, Cheever later hinted that this was more likely do to an unnamed rule violation. The experience led Cheever to write his first short story, “Expelled”. Cheever sent “Expelled” into a progressive magazine, where it was noticed by editor Malcolm Cowley. Cheever and Cowley would become close friends and Cowley helped launch Cheever’s writing career. By age eighteen, Cheever had his first short story published in a successful magazine (Bosha).
Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. “An Historical Allusion In Cheever's 'The Swimmer'.” Studies In Short
Cheever, John. “The Swimmer”. Short Fiction: Classic and Contemporary. 6th ed. Ed. Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
Cheever, John. "The Enormous Radio." Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. NY: HarperCollins, 1991.
Cheever, John. "The Swimmer." The Northon Anthology American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. E. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.
In the short story The Swimmer by John Cheever, one of the dominant themes is the passage of time. In this short story time seems to pass as reality does with us unaware of its passing. The main character is the protagonist hero, Neddy Merrill who embarks on a traditional theme of a homeward journey. The scene opens on a warm mid-summer day at an ongoing pool party with Neddy and his wife Lucinda. The pool is “fed by an artesian well with a high iron content, was a pale shade of green.
The ocean is mysterious to mankind. The unfathomable vastness of the ocean intrigues humanity into exploring it. In life, the immense possibilities that lie in the future compel us to reach for the stars. In the poem “The Story” by Karen Connelly, an individual willingly swims into deep waters even though they are fearful of what may exist in the waters. The swimmer later finds out that their fears were foolish, which illustrates the human tendency to venture into the unknown. The theme conveyed in this poem is that life is like a rough, uncertain, uncontrollable ocean that we must find get through with experience.
In John Cheever's story The Swimmer, Neddy Merrill is a successful man. His success is measured by the prestigious neighborhood he lives in with tennis, golf and swimming pools. Neddy has made it socially and financially. He is never without an invitation to social events, which always include drinking. He is at the top of his game. While attending the party at the Westerhazy's house with his wife, he has the desire to swim home. He sees the line of swimming pools that stretch eight miles to his home, he calls them the “Lucinda River” (297) . He is a confident man and thought "of himself as a legendary figure" (250-251). He dives in and when he gets out on the other side, he informs his wife he is swimming home. Cheever uses each pool that Neddy visits to show the passage of time in Neddy's life, and reveals how his alcoholism, infidelity and continual denial of his actions led to the destruction of his American dream.
his life where it has influences of his writing and how it did impact many people.
The main ideas that are expressed in John Cheever's The Swimmer, is how Neddy lives through a variety of stages of alcoholism and how they each affect his everyday life. In The Swimmer, Neddy takes daily swims through multiple swimming pools. This represents the journeys in his life. He goes from being cheerful to complete sadness and depression. When Neddy is or is not swimming also represents the emotions he is going through. For example, when Neddy is not swimming, he will feel down or angry for no apparent reason. Because of his alcohol addiction, he is usually looking for alcohol during this period of time. Once he has had a few drinks, he is feeling much better and is ready to swim again. “He needed a drink. Whiskey would warm him, pick him up, carry him ...
After reading the first chapter of Mark Ferguson’s short story, “A Drowning” I already knew that I would not like the story. It is an example of a lifeguard’s nightmare, finding a drowning victim without a way to save them. The fact that the narrator is painfully reliving the story makes me tense, especially when thinking about dangerous situations that could happen while I am working as a lifeguard and the effects it could have on me. To conclude, the story made me more and more uncomfortable each time the the victim was put in further danger and especially uncomfortable when he never came back up which made the story difficult for me to read.
“The Swimmer,” a short fiction by John Cheever, presents a theme to the reader about the unavoidable changes of life. The story focuses on the round character by the name of Neddy Merrill who is in extreme denial about the reality of his life. He has lost his youth, wealth, and family yet only at the end of the story does he develop the most by experiencing a glimpse of realization on all that he has indeed lost. In the short story “The Swimmer,” John Cheever uses point of view, setting and symbolism to show the value of true relationships and the moments of life that are taken for granted.