Life Will Go On

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

By the time the alcohol touches the tongue, the storm has already begun. John Cheever’s relationship with alcohol presents itself throughout the short story “The Swimmer”, and uses the character, Ned Merrill, to represent the struggles he was experiencing. Addiction and the need for alcohol drove this character into a storm he couldn't retreat from. In “The Swimmer” Cheever uses a physical storm and the changes in the weather to show the path of drinking and becoming an alcoholic. The short story begins with joy and excitement, then turns into something casual and frequent, but eventually leads to misfortune and a misery. Nobody desires to be led to an unpleasant storm, that comes with drinking alcohol. Cheever uses nature and the storms to represent the life of an alcoholic.

John Cheever’s short story, “The Swimmer,” describes the epic journey of Neddy Merrill as he attempts to swim his way back home. Throughout the story, readers continually question reality and fantasy while wondering whether Merrill is really experiencing what Cheever portrays or if he is simply stuck in the past. Merrill goes from house to house as he freestyles across each swimming pool along the way. As the story draws to the end, Cheever points out that Merrill’s world is not what it seems and he has really lost everything he loved. An analysis of “The Swimmer” by John Cheever through the liberal humanist and Marxist lenses suggests that the story

“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.

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 short story “The Swimmer” by John Cheever, the main character Neddy, is at a friends’ house, but decides to take a new route home. Neddy wanted to swim home by going through numerous neighboring backyards. It was an 8 mile swim home for a man who never did anything for himself. All he ever did was inherit money. it is Neddy’s delusional arrogance and not his loss of wealth that leaves him lost and alone at the end of his journey. Neddy thinks arrogantly about his life and his friends as he plans his journey at the Weterhazy’s. Neddy seems delusional throughout the entire story traveling his journey to the public pool and the Hallorans. After losing his family and friends,

In the short story “ The Swimmer,” John Cheever expresses the idea that Neddy Merrill can lose everything if he denies reality. Cheever achieves this by employing various symbols during Merrill's cross county journey. The main symbols are the weather and seasons. Cheever uses the changing of seasons to distort the character’s sense of time and show the progression of Merrill’s life. In the beginning of the story the setting is described as a midsummer day and by the end of the story, Merrill is able to see the constellations of late autumn, meaning winter is near. The illusion of time allows the reader to understand the extent of Merrill’s state of denial, as his beliefs begin to contradict the reality around him. While Cheever uses the weather to describe how Merrill feels. When it is warm Merrill feels happy and youthful. However, when it becomes colder Merrill begins to feel weak and sad. To emphasize Merrill’s state of denial, Cheever employs the motif of alcohol in “The Swimmer;” the reader notices that when Merrill is presented with a reality that he deems unpleasant, he uses alcohol to enhance his state of denial. Through the critical lens of New Historicism, the reader can infer the author’s purpose for writing “The Swimmer” is to criticize the lifestyles of affluent people in the 1950s and early 1960s. Cheever focuses on the party lifestyle of affluent communities and how the use of alcohol allows them to deny the reality around their current misfortunes.

Notwithstanding their partner’s contempt of reading and writing, both the father in “The Boat,” and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” continue to search for reprieve through their respective books and diary.

John Cheever and F. Scott Fitzgerald are both 20th century writers whose story’s thematically reflected the despair and the emptiness of life. In both story’s “The Swimmer” and “Babylon Revisited” the main characters undergo similar problems, although they are presented differently in each story. The subject matter of both stories, pertain to the ultimate downfall of a man. “The Swimmer”, conveys the story of a man who swims his way into reality. He at first is very ignorant to his situation; however with the passing of time he becomes cognizant to the idea that he has lost everything. In “Babylon Revisited” the key character is a “recovering alcoholic”, who return to his homeland in hope to get his daughter back. However, problems from

The short story of “The Swimmer,” by Cheever begins with imagery to provide the backdrop and the setting for the protagonist, Ned Merrill. The descriptions provided by Cheever give us the idea of a suburb where many people engage in playful behavior, individuals are generally wealthy, and in many instances engage in some overindulgence with alcohol.

John Cheever’s writing always reflected his own life in some aspect. In one work he has called “Expelled” He tells the story of how he did get expelled from school in detail. In some way Cheever interprets his own personal experiences into the characters of his stories. In one specific short story, “The Swimmer”, Cheever uses the the character Ned’s experience to symbolize life. Although it is a short story, the essence of time in the work is directly related to an entire lifetime. Through the course of the story there are different emotions represented by the changing of seasons, colors, temperature, nature, and also people. In “The Swimmer”. Ned’s experience directly correlates to John Cheever’s idea of life.

"The Swimmer," by John Cheever, illustrates one man's journey from a typical suburban life to loneliness and isolation. This short story is characteristic of John Cheever's typical characterizations of suburbia, with all it's finery and entrapments. Cheever has been noted for his "skill as a realist depicter of suburban manners and morals" (Norton, p. 1861). Yet this story presents a deeper look into Neddy Merril's downfall from the contentment of a summer's day to the realization of darker times.

“Big Two Hearted River”, a semi-autobiographical short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about the main character, Nick, returning to Big Two Hearted River in order to recover from his inner wounds. Nick Adams goes on a journey alone in nature for a therapeutic purpose as he suffers from PTSD. However, Hemingway purposely avoided any direct discussion regarding to Nick’s mental wounds. The absence of the discussion is contributed by Hemingway’s writing style, the Iceberg principle. Hemingway focuses explicitly on what occurs on the surface without mentioning actual theme. This indicates that the theme of self-healing cannot be uncovered by simply looking at the text itself. In order to comprehend the actual theme of the story, the character development of Nick must be examined. This is possible since Nick Adams is a recurring character of Hemingway’s stories. The two preceding stories of “Big Two Hearted River”, “Now I lay me” and “A Way you’ll Never Be”, directly discusses Nick’s suffering from shell-shock and how he comforts himself by returning to Big Two Hearted river in his mind. The two short stories will be analyzed and connected to “Big Two Hearted River” in the essay first. This will provide a strong understanding of Nick’s psyche and the reason behind his return to nature. Then, “Big Two Hearted River” the short story itself will be carefully analyzed.

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, once declared “Lost time is never found again.” This quote ties to the meaning of how people frequently let time seep through their hands. John Cheever’s "The Swimmer" portrays this through the eyes of suburban man Neddy. Neddy is the average ‘Joe’ of most suburban households. Life in suburbia is repetitive in most scenarios, and humans can easily get lost in the monotonous adventure known aslife. Time leaks away from his figure, and he is not sure of he is the one changing too fast, or the world around him. "His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption" (Kozikowski) supports this cause.

In the minds of many it is said that history will repeat itself, and that time is on a never ending loop that will always come back around. Those who believe this say that the proof of this is in everything. The trends that are here today are the copies of trends for previous decades, famine and disease still plague countries, and some of the societal issues that we face today have been those that humanity has faced before. What is said out loud is also said in the forms of written language, and this theme is prominent in many popular novels and pieces of literature. John Cheever explores this very notion, and his opinion on if it is true in his short story “The Swimmer” through the character of Ned. Ned represents a generation affected by war and their inability to cope with transitioning to civilian life after the tragedies they faced in war. It is here that he always uses Ned to testify that time passes, but humanity will always face the same adversities that they once have. When taking into consideration the time period in which “The Swimmer” is written and the historical events that happened, one may rightfully assume that it may have persuaded Cheever to integrate this theme into his works.