Suburban Realism In The Swimmer And Separating

A re-acquiring idea in fiction is the struggle to achieve dominance. In Helen Porter’s “Moving Day” the idea of achieving dominance is also present but this is mainly caused but the family disagreeing over the mood, this also ties into the mood. In Helen Porter’s “ Moving Day” the use of literary elements and personal expression will have a negative effect on the family and their ties.

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

Evocative and visceral, Irving Layton’s “The Swimmer” follows the impassioned swim of a man as a metaphor for man’s relation to nature. The poem begins with the titular swimmer breaking away from his vessel and into the sea. Layton elaborates upon the swimmer’s journey underwater, as a mystical intercourse between man and Earth. In the final stanza, the man is expelled by the sea and returned to land. In “The Swimmer”, through the description of an incestuous relationship communicated through erotic imagery, Layton expounds on the theme of the connected, yet ultimately detached, relationship between man and nature.

“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.

John Updike’s Separating tells the story of parents Joan and Richard as they try to navigate how to tell their children they are separating. Joan and Richard both have an idea of what they think would be the best way to tell their children. Richard thinks it would be best to tell them all together. Meanwhile, Joan explains to Richard it would be best to tell the children separately, “I think just making an announcement is a cop-out. They’ll start quarrelling and playing to each other instead of focusing. They’re each individuals, you know, not just some corporate obstacle to your freedom (Updike 638).” As the story continues, it is revealed to the reader that Richard initiated the divorce. The reader becomes aware of this when after Joan and

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 purpose of this critique is to analyze the various aspects of a modern family through the film, “This is Where I Leave You”. Different components of marriage, families, and relationships will be explored to better understand the central theme of the movie.

In “Separating”, John Updike employs alienation as the Maples family is starting to transform. Richard and Joan Maples

Miles and his parents live in a “tiny, thin-walled metal-roofed house, but Miles lives by himself in a detached garage behind the house. In the garage was a back stairway which allowed him to step unnoticed into the night. One night Miles couldn’t sleep, so he stayed up reading a book called “The Erotic Ocean,” that same night Miles overheard his parents discussing divorce, mostly his mother talking and his father agreeing. Instead of sitting there and listening, Miles slipped out to go to the Bay, just before the sunrise. A few months later Miles parent’s finally told his that they were getting separated, but just because they are getting separated doesn’t mean they are getting a divorce (Lynch, Chapter 7).

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 purpose of this essay is to analyze the short story “The Swimmer” by Jon Cheever and it’s film adaptation. Overall, the film and the short story use different dialogue, different characterization, and different visual effects and imagery to provide the reader and the viewer with the allegory of Ned Merrill’s life. While both works focus on the fanciful nature of moving across an entire neighborhood using swimming pools, there are more differences between the film and short story than similarities. Firstly, I will begin by describing the usage of visual effects in the film and imagery in the short story. Secondly, I will describe the differences in dialogue. Finally, I will conclude by describing the ways in which both pieces leverage their characters.

Kingsolver is a divorced  woman and understands what society means by the phrase “a broken home”. She believes that having  an extended family or divorced family opens up a door that leads to new things in the family. She uses  the tale called “Stone Soup” to talk about how having a family is like having “a big empty  pot”(Kingsolver 152) and about how when one adds new things to the pot it can lead to a happy family.  Kingsolver uses the first person point of view to let the reader have a more personal connection  to the essay. She allows the reader to know what she thinks and how she feels. She writes, “ I dare  anybody to call this a broken home” (Kingsolver 147). The reader knows how emotional she is about  the subject of broken homes. Also, the tone of the essay seems to be a hostile towards anyone who  says that the family is a broken home. The diction of the essay uses both conversational and formal  language to connect with and inform the reader. She uses words like “blended families” (Kingsolver  148) to introduce the reader to different family labels. She uses phrases like “bless their hearts”  (Kingsolver 149) to be more conversational and motherly. Kingsolver uses anecdotes and imagery to  help solidify her ideas. She remembers Andy’s soccer game and how the cheering family brings to life  what a real family is.  Kingsolver tries to persuade the reader that