John Cheever's The Swimmer

760 Words2 Pages

The setting of “The Swimmer” is in the suburbs, describing the aquatic adventure of Neddy, an energetic and cheerful father and husband. After attending a cocktail party, he decided that he would swim his entire way home through various swimming pools. Through his adventures, the protagonist makes a great discovery that his marriage life is a great lie. The journey from the cocktail party to his home converts him from a vibrant man to an old impoverished man whose life is in a major crisis. As he arrives at his house, he finds his children and wife have abandoned him. Different settings intertwine to showcase the middle class crisis he was experiencing. In this sense, the setting of the story clearly depicts the ignorance that people have. Neddy for instance has been thinking that he has a happy family, something that even surprises the reader who finds that the protagonist does not come into terms with the new reality of life (Cheever 93).

The significantly fictitious life of Neddy depicts the struggles that most middle-aged people go through. In middle class situations, most parents are always in Neddy's case where they erroneously believe that their economic prosperity is equivalent to their marital success. This is not normally the truth because most parents normally, discover that the more financial success that they enjoy, the more marital problems that they go through. In this sense, there is a similarity between the physical journey of Neddy and the real marital life journey. In his passage through the swimming pools, it becomes possible to establish the clouded nature of Neddy’s memory, which negatively affected his approach to life.

His failure in recalling significant aspect regarding his neighbor exposes the numerous...

... middle of paper ...

...and oblivious at first. He is not even recognized. Then he is warned, scorned at, and in deep trouble.

Neddy pays no attention to these symbols and becomes "isolated, beaten and finally unaided" (Nydam 15). It is a depressing expedition, but like plunging into a river, Neddy was swept away.

Conclusion

From this short story, the author seems to create a relation between Neddy's swimming voyage and his personal marital challenges. Quite apparent, there is a great correlation between the swimming pool setting and the household of the protagonist.

Therefore, the author desired to create a link between the life of Neddy and the practical life of most Americans who have to go through the challenges of the middle life crisis.

Works Cited

Cheever, John W. “The Swimmer.” Charters, Ann. Story and Its Writer. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Lone Bather by A.M. Klein and The Swimmer by Irving Layton

    1560 Words  | 4 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • John Cheever's The Swimmer, O Youth and Beauty!, and The Enormous Radio

    1552 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout history, America has produced some of the greatest writers to walk the earth. Novels, poems, plays, and short stories have captivated the American public. No one was better at enchanting his audience than John Cheever. John Cheever wrote many short stories throughout his life. He has been presented with many awards for his works. Cheever was a master of spinning tales about suburban life and other situations he experienced. Some of his most popuar works included “The Swimmer”, “O Youth and Beauty!”, and “The Enormous Radio”. His works were well received by the public and he achieved great fame during his lifetime. However, he also lived a life of hardship and scandal. Even after his death in 1982, Cheever is remembered as one of the greatest writers in American history.

    Read More

  • Indian By Sherman Alexie Literary Devices

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first section of this essay focuses on the background stories of Alexie’s father and his childhood. It presents the beginning of Alexie’s habit of reading in an amused tone, showing a lighthearted image without mentioning the hardship he has experienced. However, Alexie starts to divide this passage in paragraph

    Read More

  • Themes in The Boat by Alistair MacLeod

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story describes the protagonist who is coming of age as torn between the two worlds which he loves equally, represented by his mother and his father. He is now mature and is reflecting on his life and the difficulty of his childhood as a fisherman. Despite becoming a university professor and achieving his father’s dream, he feels lonely and regretful since, “No one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters of the pier” (MacLeod 261). Like his father, the narrator thinks about what his life could have been like if he had chosen another path. Now, with the wisdom and experience that comes from aging and the passing of time, he is trying to make sense of his own life and accept that he could not please everyone. The turmoil in his mind makes the narrator say, “I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear” (MacLeod 273). Once a decision is made, it is sometimes better to leave the past and focus on the present and future. The memories of the narrator’s family, the boat and the rural community in which he spent the beginning of his life made the narrator the person who he is today, but it is just a part of him, and should not consume his present.

    Read More

  • Literature Perspectives On America By Louise Erdrich

    1376 Words  | 3 Pages

    While some stories are more relevant in today 's society I think they are all equally important, despite the amount of attention each topic gets in American society’s media. In “The Swimmer” the clever metaphor using Neddy’s slowly digressing swim journey on the “Lucinda River” compares to how his real life and his relationship with his wife Lucinda and his children goes downhill. It is clear that Neddy is living a la...

    Read More

  • Allusion and Symbolism in The Swimmer, by John Cheever

    746 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Cheever does not merely state the theme of his story, he expresses his theme, as a good writer should, in a variety of metaphors and analogies coupled with powerful imagery. In The Swimmer, Cheever writes and underscores his primary theme of alcoholism in many ways, such as his use of autumnal imagery and the color green. However, there is also some very prominent symbolism and allusions that serve to highlight the theme while also augmenting the artistic and poetic nature of the story. One very important use of symbolism is in the “perverted sacraments” as originally pointed out by Hal Blythe in 1984. Along side these symbols, Hal Blythe, along with Charlie Sweet, later discovered a clear allusion to Ponce de Leòn in 1989.

    Read More

  • Character Comparison: “The Swimmer” and “Babylon Revisited”

    1033 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cheever, John. “The Swimmer”. Short Fiction: Classic and Contemporary. 6th ed. Ed. Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.

    Read More

  • Denial and Alcoholism Exposed in The Swimmer, by John Cheever

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cheever, John. “The Swimmer”. Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth Mahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 2003. 297-304.

    Read More

  • Alcoholism in The Swimmer, by John Cheever

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cheever, John. "The Swimmer." The Northon Anthology American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. E. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.

    Read More

  • The Destruction of the American Dream in John Cheever’s The Swimmer

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Perspectives on Childhood in The Glass Castle and The Kite Runner

    1727 Words  | 4 Pages

    In John Connolly’s novel, The Book of Lost Things, he writes, “for in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be”. Does one’s childhood truly have an effect on the person one someday becomes? In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, this question is tackled through the recounting of Jeannette and Amir’s childhoods from the perspectives of their older, more developed selves. In the novels, an emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the relationships Jeannette and Amir have with their fathers while growing up, and the effects that these relations have on the people they each become. The environment to which they are both exposed as children is also described, and proves to have an influence on the characteristics of Jeannette and Amir’s adult personalities. Finally, through the journeys of other people in Jeannette and Amir’s lives, it is demonstrated that the sustainment of traumatic experiences as a child also has a large influence on the development of one’s character while become an adult. Therefore, through the analysis of the effects of these factors on various characters’ development, it is proven that the experiences and realities that one endures as a child ultimately shape one’s identity in the future.

    Read More

  • Ned's Journey In The Swimmer, By John Cheever

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    In a story by John Cheever, a man decides to go from his friend’s house and swim across the county to his own home. Since there is a lack of a large body of water such as a lake or river, Neddy Merrill decides to make his path go through his neighbors’ pools. The narrator only takes a couple of hours to complete Ned’s journey, but the seasons change and time passes as though several years have gone by. In these changing years, Ned descends from youthful ecstasy into loss and suffering. The main character of “The Swimmer” can be classified as a gambler and alcoholic because of the choices he makes, the thoughts narrated for him throughout his expedition, and the way his life ends up falling apart.

    Read More

  • Comparison of The Swimmer and A Rose For Emily

    544 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • The Swimmer's Moment Margaret Avison Summary

    815 Words  | 2 Pages

    Blank faces of said swimmers means that they seem not to have any aspirations, and, therefore, not true value in existing. This causes them to swim in circles, without end and any true destination worth reaching, thusly. Them having pale faces, moreover, suggests their lack of experience, namely, going out to explore. A pale complexion is also associated, typically, with the connotation of nervousness or fright. These words describing cowering swimmers contrast with the seeming pleasantness contained within ignorance so as to communicate Avison’s message that mindless conformity and lack of yearning to attain enlightenment and the truth can be enticing, as it means leading a simple life, yet it furthermore states that said people live in a pitiful state of irrational operation with no real meaning other than to live and to

    Read More

  • Reckless Acts of Bravery in The Snake Charmer by Jamie James and Safe Haven

    692 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story of a sea rescue is portrayed as “heroic” and “an outstanding contribution to search and rescue” (Margaret, Linley). While off duty, a local officer assisted a boy back to shore after having been caught in a rip tide. His actions were valiant, as were the boy’s father, who died while trying to save his son.

    Read More

More about John Cheever's The Swimmer

Open Document