Use of Symbolism, Tone, and Irony in The Swimmer, by John Cheever

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."

Drinking may not seem to be so bad at first, but the consequences come later in the journey. John Cheever begins this short story with an initial sign of casual drinking. Ned Merrill and his wife are accompanied by friends who all say they “drank too much last night” as if they were all drinking together (Cheever 726). Right from the beginning, Cheever gives readers the hint that characters from this story drink a lot. He makes it a part of the social norm, so it seems to be something done on the regular. Before Ned decides to begin a journey to swim the Lucinda River, he notices the weather. Cheever directs the focus to the fact that “it was a fine day. In the west there was a massive stand of cumulus cloud so like a city seen from a distance”, marking the beginning of the storm (726). Looking into the West, a place of death and misfortune, are where fluffy and cotton-like clouds are on display. In literature, the West is often symbolic of death and dying since the sun sets over that horizon. A time where leaves and plants die, and the start of darkness. Those clouds may look peaceful, but they represent the beginning of a storm coming from the disastrous West.

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.

Small details are instrumental in seeing the bigger picture. This is apparent when reading “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. Most often the reader experiences visual imagery in poetry. In this poem the reader encounters visual, auditory, and sensory imagery. “The Fish” is filled with minute details that paint a picture for the reader. With each new element that is introduced, it becomes easier to visualize the fish. The speaker is able to show the reader the beauty as well as the ugliness of this creature with her vivid imagery. The imagery used is so distinct that the reader can envisage being the fisherman and catching this fish. Another important element involved in this poem is irony.

The storm shows the escalation of the story and Doodles life, as the narrator continues to push Doodle to his limits. “The sun disappeared and the darkness descended, almost like the night.” (425) While the storm begins to move in, the brothers anger and rage begins to move in also, because he is not wanting to accept the defeat of their goals of summer.” When he stepped on to the skiff he collapsed” (425) As the storm moves in we can see Doodle getting weaker, because of the brother pushing him past the point of no return. As the storm moves closer and closer to the brothers they begin to go back to their home. Doodle is extraordinarily scared of the storm, therefor he stays closer to the narrator while they walk. The narrator walks faster therefore Doodle has to keep up with him. Then his brother begins to run through the storm which causes Doodle to become “uncoordinated,” and the narrator leaves Doodle behind in the storm. Then the storm stops.”The flood of childish spite evanesced as well”(425) when we see the storm stop, we see the brother come back to his sinces and become perturbed about Doodle. When in the storm we see Doodles life coming to an end.The brother sees a bolt of lightning shatter a gum tree,which could also be compared to his

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.

Ned was a victim for many reasons that were out of his control. He was victimised because he was raised in an Irish family and because he was the oldest male in his family he had to take up the role of his father and it would have been hard growing up with no role model. Almost all of the male members of his family were involved in crime. This forced Ned to become a criminal because the police thought of him as one of the Kelly family and a criminal. Ned grew up in an Irish family and his family were criminals this means for the rest of Ned’s life he would be victimised by the federal authorities. This makes Ned a victim of colonial society.

William Golding kills off everything important to survival and by this he means that the world is doomed. So many significant objects are broken by the end of the book, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, which is a novel about a bunch of inexperienced boys being trapped together on an island and are forced to find means of survival. There are a lot of symbols in this book that all represent the only way they can survive. Each symbol represents a piece of the world and how it functions. Without all of these pieces, the world can’t function. William Golding clearly shows that the world is doomed by one by one killing off all of the objects and symbols that keep them sane and alive.

In The Swimmer a short story by John Cheever a man named Neddy Merrill decides to swim across every pool in the county naming his route the Lucinda River after his wife. As he goes on this journey some of his neighbors are nice, some show pity, and others show distaste for him. Throughout the story Cheever gives subtle hints that Neddy is disoriented as he doesn’t remember key details of things that have happened to his friends in the area. At the end of the story a disoriented Neddy reaches his home to find it empty, with his family gone. Cheever uses this short story to critique the way of life in the upper class suburbs of America that contributed to the social demise of Neddy Merrill

Alcoholism seems to be a common obstacle in everyone’s lives. Whether one is trying to overcome a problem or the possibility of knowing someone who is, which also seems to be a common characteristic for the main characters in each of the stories “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie and “The Swimmer” by John Cheever. These two stories share motifs, symbols and themes. The most obvious contrasts are as follows; the point of view for each of these stories is different. In Alexies’ story, it is told in the first person view, for a reason too.

Usually if a bartender knows a man he will have his drink ready for him with a smile. Not the case anymore for Neddy, at this point he realized he was losing something, his pride. Upon his return home he finds his house in bad condition, vines growing on it, rust on the handle of the garage door, the lights off, and nobody home. He stands there cold and hopeless in his worn and torn bathing suit searching for answers as to where he went wrong.

"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.

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.