Life Will Go On

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Recommended: American literature after world war 2

There is a common notion that money cannot buy happiness. This may be true for most, but not for John Cheever’s protagonist, Neddy Merrill, in “The Swimmer”. John Cheever was born May 27, 1912 in Quincy, Massachusetts. He has written many short stories for various publishers such as The Atlantic, The Yale Review and The New Yorker. In 1930, John Cheever published his first story in The New Republic; and in 1941, he married Mary Winternitz, with whom he had two children, Susan and Benjamin. Cheever served in the army during World War II; and after he wrote scripts for television series such as Life with Father. He also taught at a variety of institutions such as the University of Iowa, Boston University, Barnard College, and Sing Sing Prison. He received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. On June 18, 1982, Cheever died of cancer (Wilson 2). One of Cheever’s most well known short stories is “The Swimmer”. It was first published in 1964 at a time of great prosperity. This was when most of the middle and upper class Americans were enjoying the wealth and affluence of the post war era after World War II. It was during this time, when the suburbs, the setting of “The Swimmer,” grew in rapid quantity (Wilson 6). “The Swimmer” is a short story about a middle-aged man name Neddy Merrill who decides to swim home one day through the pools of all his friends and neighbors. Throughout the journey home, Neddy encounters many friends, and some conflicts, as he makes his way along the ‘Lucinda River’. Half way through the short story, Neddy’s journey becomes rough and the owners of the pools he has been crossing have begun to be rude to him. When he arrives home, he comes to fi...

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...heever's 'The Swimmer..'" Explicator 50.1 (Fall 1991): 49-50. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 120. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 120. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Graves, Nora Calhoun. "'The Symptomatic Colors in John Cheever's 'The Swimmer..'" Critical Essays on John Cheever. Ed. R. G. Collins. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1983. 191-193. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 57. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
The Swimmer. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. http://www.ahschool.com/file.cfm?resourceid=6067&filename=20091207184417_734640623434.pdf
"The Swimmer." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 278-294. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

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