Analysis Of Ichiyo Higuchi 's ' The Women 's Swimming Pool '

“For Colored Girls” involves seven women who represents a different shade of the rainbow. The colors are brown, red, yellow, white, green, orange and blue. Their costumes and make-up transformed each of them and were significant of the color their character embodied. As a group their acting made all of their roles of equal importance, without one dominating the other. These women together formed a bond through their various adversities, gradually taking them from strangers to companion. From an objective view, the audience is allowed to simply observe the events as they take place chronologically. Throughout the movie during some of the conflicting and traumatic scenes, one of the women recites a poem to signify and release the emotion being felt at that time.

In Anzia Yezierska's short story "The lost beautifulness," the protagonist Hanneh Hayyeh scrimps and saves to be able to paint her apartment white to make it look respectable for her son Ady when he comes home from fighting World War I. Hayyeh wants some kind of hope to cling to in her desperate immigrant's life. Although the dialect of the characters is Russian-Jewish and the setting is in an early 20th century urban environment, the idea of immigrant aspirations and the conflict between rich and poor is a common theme in American literature.

For this essay, I am going to be discussing the short story “Swimming” found on the New Yorker, and written by T. Cooper. I have chosen this story for many reasons, and among those reasons is the personal sadness I felt when I first read the story, almost as if the universe was placing a certain theme in my life, that only the main character could possibly understand. I am talking about running, the god given instinct felt by all men, inherent in the nature of fear, and brought out in all who feel sadness in its full intensity. Though in my short life I can not compare the sadness I have felt with that of losing a child at my own hand, but if I had been placed in that situation, if fate had tempted my soul with such a sequence of events, I would like to think I could find the strength to endure and the courage to not abandon all I had previously known. Yet I am able to reconcile the themes of grief, the mode of recovery, and the longing to escape such a terrible tale. I think in this piece, as I will discuss in later parts, the author was able to put into words a transformation we rarely get to observe in closeness, the kind of transformation that turns a kind man into a “just man” the kind of death that turns this world from a beautiful and happy place into a world that is closing in on our main character, that is forcing him to surface temporarily and gasp for air, much like he does when he finds peace in the water, wading breath after air, after sea. I firmly believe that

“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.

“Wade in the Water” is an excerpt from Alvin Ailey’s Revelations. His masterpiece Revelations was created in1960 and it reflects his experience and memories of growing up in Texas. “Wade in the Water” is a dance within Revelations that shows us a traditional baptism ceremony that takes place in a river. Alvin Ailey’s “Wade in the Water” shows us the hope that blacks had of someday being free. The baptism signifies the faith and hope of blacks being free from slavery and beginning a new life with freedom. For example, in (1:23-1:40) we see three male dancers with what look like tree branches “cleansing” the air from evil spirits before the baptism takes place. In (1:16-1:23) we see seven dancer taking two steps forward and two steps back with their hands together, like they were praying, and two other dancers with their hands up, as if they were asking god for help.

In the short story, “The Swimmer,” John Cheever uses precise literary devices to emphasize the true meaning behind what the average reader might first gather. Throughout this short story, Neddy’s journey is recorded through what he does and how the time changes. His actions of “jumping from pool to pool” show Neddy’s incapabilities of growing up and the falsehood that he lives in. John Cheever wants the readers to understand that Neddy’s life is only a downfall as the years go by, and that his outlook on life doesn’t change until he realizes all his actions have left him alone. To set the tone of the story, the author uses metaphors of different objects to show Neddy’s changes in life, change of diction to set a tone from excellence to weakness, and Neddy’s life paralleled through the imagery described in this short story.

In the article Swimming for her Life by Kristan Lewis Describes the life of Yusra Mardini. She is a refuge and is a talented swimmer. In 2015 when Yursa was 17 she had to flee her country, Syria. Syria broke out in war Yusra and her sister Sarah wanted to go the Germany but the contraries around Syria did not let people go into their country without knowing how you are. So they went by boat between to Turkey and Greece but the boat could only carry 6 people at a time but they crammed 18 people into the boat. The motor stopped and the boat started to flood. Yursa and her sister, Sarah both jumped in the water and pushed the boat to the shore they swam 3 and a half hours in the cold rushing waters of the sea. They saved 18 people. When they finally

The Little Mermaid is an example of how woman were seen in society. In the fairy tale, women are characterized by appearance rather than personality by both men and women. The little mermaid mentions “But if you take my voice, what shall I have left?” (Anderson 226). In this quote, the little mermaid believes that she cannot just be herself to win the prince’s heart. The prince also looks at women the same way because of how he talks to the little mermaid. He asks her, “You’ve no fear of the sea, have you, my dumb child?” (Anderson 229). He treats her as if she is still a small child just because she cannot speak. The tone helps shape the whole story into a feminist piece. Anderson relays the moral of

"Between the pool and the Gardenias" portrays the story of a poor woman that finds an abandoned baby on the street and decides to keep her. The story is set in Haiti, a poor country consumed by malnutrition, abandonment, and suffering. Edwidge Danticat uses the main character, a poor, lower class, black woman from Ville Rose, to make a political commentary on the situation in Haiti. The story suggests the desire of poor people to escape their harsh reality and become consumed in a world outside their own.

“How can you buy or sell the sky-the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us? We will decide in our time” (Chief Seattle: 1855). In the Documentary “Flow – for the love of water” it visualizes the global crisis we face on Mother’s Earth as it pertains to the diminishing of fresh water. The Documentary portrays along with the help of experts that this global crises is affecting each and every one of us in today’s society including animals. The film shows us that water is constantly being wasted, polluted, and privatized by big co operations. Prime examples of these greedy companies were mentioned in the film such as Nestle, Thames, Suez,

and it was in this book that I stumbled into this piece of criticism which gives more

In her essay “Throwing Like a Girl,” Iris Marion Young examines why women move differently than do men. She discusses the apparent observable differences in bodily comportment, physical engagement with things, ways of using the body in performing tasks, and bodily self-image of feminine existence. Young makes the argument that the differences between men and women are not caused by a mysterious “essence” or by any biological or anatomical limitation, but, rather, we are socialized into “being” in our bodily space by the situation surrounding our existence.

In Frank Perry’s 1986 film adaptation of “The Swimmer”, Cheever, Neddy, an upper middle class man who decides to swim across his neighbors’ pools home only to discover that his house no longer belongs to him and he is no longer a part of his family, is characterized as a very suave and robust man. The first scene of The Swimmer emphasizes Neddy’s vitality by the ways in which the camera encompasses Neddy’s body and that of his friends, the addition of two characters as well as additional interactions between Neddy and the women in this text. This contrasts the characterization of Neddy in the short story in the sense that Cheever’s Neddy is not presented as this sexual and aggressively masculine figure.

     "The Swimmer" by John Cheever describes Neddy Merril's "swim" home. Neddy is a husband and a father, he is also a drunk. The story encompasses about twenty years of his life of alcohol which ruined not only him but also his relationship with his family. One day after waking up with a hangover he drinks a little and decides to swim home. It is obvious he is a drunk because he is constantly searching for a drink on his swim home.

Watching the screen, many children and adults are glued to the swimmers that race each other in the Olympics. The swimmers are young and strong, but many do not know who these swimmers are. Adding on to what they do not know contains the history of swimming in the glorified Olympics. The backstory of this sporting event shows the progression and improvement of swimming because swimming evolved through the Olympics. This includes the beginning, improvement, and modern Olympic swimming sport.