The Swimmer, Where Cheever Uses Neddy Merrill Essay

Harry Crews's Body and John Cheever's "Five-Forty-Eight" offer characters whose lives lack control. Although Crews's Bateman is a perfecting, attractive, and popular body builder, his life does not satisfy him. However, from the outside Bateman appears happy and content. On the other hand, Cheever's Ms. Dent is skinny, shy, emotional, and disheveld. Her description reflects the unsteadiness and the insecurity in her life. Although Bateman's personality contrast with Ms. Dent's, they have a similar need for control. Bateman and Ms. Dent search for control in the form of love objects. Bateman finds Earline Turnipseed an obese, virginal, simple and complacent "redneck."

Everyone has a desire, something that they want to achieve or obtain for them. Whether it is ethical or immoral, having desires is almost inevitable. Sometimes these desires make people go through tough times. Tragic occurrences such as death and broken relationships shape the lives of people positively or negatively. In the following essay, “Many Rivers to Cross” and the short stories, “Two Kinds” and “Everyday Use”, the protagonists of these texts struggle to achieve their desire, but because of those struggles the main characters do eventually come to a revelation.

The son had loved his father dearly but does not favor his way of life. His interest in school greatly outweighed his interest or desire to work on ‘The Boat’. He still had a love for the sea and in some way felt like he should carry out his family’s tradition. After his uncle had accepted a new job he took his position on the boat and promised his father that we would continue to sail with him for as long as he lived, and when his father passed despite the desires of his mother he followed his dreams and pursued education and all of its wonders. After living his life he finds himself longing for the sea again and isn’t so satisfied with his life.

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

Eventually, the fun and laughter turn into something normal and boring, and drinking more serves to reanimate his social interactions. Unfortunately, those problems are only gone for a little while, and Ned Merrill finds this out the hard way by continuing his journey. Each house

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 “Coney Island Life” by James L Weil, the speaker nostalgically reflects on the brevity and the vain pursuits of life.

Many people do not have the chance to live out their dream; a sundry amount have to settle for more attainable goals. Future presidents became dentists and rock stars turn into nurses. There is a limited population who can walk up every morning completely satisfied with their life path; McTeague is one of the lucky few. He is a man who took the remnants of his deceased mother’s wealth and pursued his dream. Some might fantasize of bigger homes or fancier cars, but McTeague dreamed of a little dental parlor. His dream of starting up a business can seem rather small, but McTeague is content with his one shop. The narrator however disapproves of McTeague’s ambitions and belittles the protagonist through choice of structure and condescending

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.

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.

As Nick describes the route of his limousine ride around the the edge of New York City, he writes, “we take the limo all the way East and, like children who can barely swim and who run around the edge of the pool to get to where they want to jump in, we ride the perimeter of the island North” (Brunt 12). Though Nick and his friends ride around in a limousine, flaunting wealth and supposed power, they are “like children who can barely swim.” Brunt uses this metaphor to imply the lack of true power the wealthy really have. Although Nick has money, and is in a limo rather than a taxi, he is no different than the thousands of people in New York fighting traffic- he enjoys little more power than a child who can barely swim. Later, as Nick’s friend Jack has a heart attack, Nick relates, “Jesus Christ, I don’t want to be here. ‘Does anyone know CPR? … Any of you idiots know CPR!’” (Brunt 185). Brunt creates a panicked and helpless tone by having Nick shout out against the other people in the room. In this do or die situation, Nick faces a problem that no amount of money can solve and frustrated lashes out. Jack’s dire situation humanizes Nick- though he works hard to achieve success and power in life, in the face of death, he is the most helpless person in the

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

Here, the expression carries more weight than just being fatigued, physically. It is the burden from years of chasing to be “in charge of New York”, but realising that his life has been invalidated, for never achieving his personal idea of success. Miller offers a criticism of not only the way society defines success in terms of power and possession, but also of individuals’ adamant subscription to this belief. Additionally, Linda’s repetition of the “mind” echoes the

"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.