the swimmer

Fear is an uncomfortable, but extremely necessary feeling. It gives us the awareness we need to know when we might be in a dangerous situation. But fear can also hold people back from doing what they truly believe in or going for their dream. The unknown is the most common fear people experience. The unknown is something that cannot be prepared for and therefore it is out of people’s comfort zones. This is exactly the kind of fear we see in S. J. Bulter’s The Swimmer, a short story from 2011. The story is centred around a woman, who longs to swim in the river outside her house, but is afraid of the unknown and of what people will think of her. She manages to overcome her fear and it changes her as a person.

The story is told in third person narrator from the woman’s point of view. She is the only person in the story, and the story centres around her mentally developing and overcoming her fear. In the beginning of the story she is nervous just at the idea of getting into the water. She is scared that people are going to see her, “if she goes now, she’ll have the river to herself. No one will see. Why see minds this, she doesn’t know. Everyday she looks out at the river, and longs to swim in it” (p. 1 l. 17). The woman is scared of what people might think of her, doing something out of the ordinary. She is trapped in her own head, not giving in to her urges to go to the water, but holding back, looking and longing to go to the water. This however changes when she finally makes the decision to go swim in the river. At first she is very anxious about being in the water,

“An unnamed fear stirs her thoughts, takes a shape. Is the current stronger than it looks? In spat she has seen great branches, dead sheep even, swept past her wi...

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... and of the way the world looks at her. Through the story she battles this fear, and is able to overcome it thus making her a more confident person. She becomes a person who is free of other people’s will and able to act based on her own desires. All because she is able to overcome the fear, that has held her back.

Fear is something all people will experience multiple times in their lives. It’s inventible. But how a person reacts to fear is going to define that person’s life. This is exactly what is seen in S.J. Butlers short story. The woman lets her fear keep her from what she wants to do – but in the end she managed to overcome it – and that helped her develop as a person. To no longer be afraid of society’s rules, but care about her own wishes. Fear is something that can be overcome. It is a challenge, but also a big factor in defining a person’s character.