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Having written a multitude of short stories and novels, author, John Cheever, has showcased his incredible writing abilities multiple times throughout his career. Even as a child, Cheever outwardly expressed his desire to write. As proven by his longstanding career, Cheever’s thirst for writing remained with him throughout his entire life. In perhaps his most famous piece of work, “The Swimmer,” Cheever’s impeccable writing ability is showcased brilliantly. Although originally set out to be a novel, “The Swimmer” has grown to become a widely recognized and analyzed short story, one which both readers and literary critics alike admire. By drawing on his personal life and by using a wide range of writing techniques, Cheever depicts and documents the protagonist Neddy’s physical and mental demise and journey towards death, while still relating the plot to many other works. In doing so, Cheever ultimately addresses the negative side of the human condition.
John Cheever was born on May 27th, 1912 in Quincy, Massachusetts to parents Fredrick and Mary Cheever. Growing up, Cheever lived a life that was perpetually characterized by various hardships. For one, the Cheever family fell victim to a financial crisis in the mid-1920s when Cheever’s father lost his job due to the demise of the New England shoe and textile industry. This, coupled with his poor performance in any other academic subject besides writing, spurred the then eighteen-year-old John Cheever to go live with his older brother, Fred Cheever, in Boston. The brother’s relationship would soon grow stronger and stronger as they spent more and more time with each other. As a result of their close relationship, Cheever soon started to draw inspiration from Fred. Literary crit...
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... the emptiness of suburbia, Cheever ultimately highlights the negative aspects of the human condition.
In conclusion, John Cheever’s short story, “The Swimmer,” is an all-encompassing piece of fiction that deals with the heavy topic of life and time. Incredibly, Cheever drew inspiration from his own life and mixed specific, personal elements into the work. This tactic proved successful, as it has given “The Swimmer” the capability to portray a bleak, yet accurate depiction of the human condition. Cheever sheds light on the parts of life that most people much rather ignore than face. In essence, Cheever used his abilities intelligently and as a result, gave the literary world the wonderful story that is “The Swimmer.”
Works Cited
Cheever, John. "The Swimmer." The Northon Anthology American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. E. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.
The author shows the reader the sea just as the sailor does as death, but more than death
The author skillfully uses literary techniques to convey his purpose of giving life to a man on an extraordinary path that led to his eventual demise and truthfully telling the somber story of Christopher McCandless. Krakauer enhances the story by using irony to establish Chris’s unique personality. The author also uses Characterization the give details about Chris’s lifestyle and his choices that affect his journey. Another literary element Krakauer uses is theme. The many themes in the story attract a diverse audience. Krakauer’s telling is world famous for being the truest, and most heart-felt account of Christopher McCandless’s life. The use of literary techniques including irony, characterization and theme help convey the authors purpose and enhance Into The Wild.
In Craig Lesley’s novel The Sky Fisherman, he illustrates the full desire of direction and the constant flow of life. A boy experiences a chain of life changing series of events that cause him to mature faster than a boy should. Death is an obstacle that can break down any man, a crucial role in the circle of life. It’s something that builds up your past and no direction for your future. No matter how hard life got, Culver fought through the pain and came out as a different person. Physical pain gives experience, emotional pain makes men.
The story describes the protagonist who is coming of age as torn between the two worlds which he loves equally, represented by his mother and his father. He is now mature and is reflecting on his life and the difficulty of his childhood as a fisherman. Despite becoming a university professor and achieving his father’s dream, he feels lonely and regretful since, “No one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters of the pier” (MacLeod 261). Like his father, the narrator thinks about what his life could have been like if he had chosen another path. Now, with the wisdom and experience that comes from aging and the passing of time, he is trying to make sense of his own life and accept that he could not please everyone. The turmoil in his mind makes the narrator say, “I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear” (MacLeod 273). Once a decision is made, it is sometimes better to leave the past and focus on the present and future. The memories of the narrator’s family, the boat and the rural community in which he spent the beginning of his life made the narrator the person who he is today, but it is just a part of him, and should not consume his present.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton, 1998. 1578-1690.
The ocean is mysterious to mankind. The unfathomable vastness of the ocean intrigues humanity into exploring it. In life, the immense possibilities that lie in the future compel us to reach for the stars. In the poem “The Story” by Karen Connelly, an individual willingly swims into deep waters even though they are fearful of what may exist in the waters. The swimmer later finds out that their fears were foolish, which illustrates the human tendency to venture into the unknown. The theme conveyed in this poem is that life is like a rough, uncertain, uncontrollable ocean that we must find get through with experience.
In the short story The Swimmer by John Cheever, one of the dominant themes is the passage of time. In this short story time seems to pass as reality does with us unaware of its passing. The main character is the protagonist hero, Neddy Merrill who embarks on a traditional theme of a homeward journey. The scene opens on a warm mid-summer day at an ongoing pool party with Neddy and his wife Lucinda. The pool is “fed by an artesian well with a high iron content, was a pale shade of green.
Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. “An Historical Allusion In Cheever's 'The Swimmer'.” Studies In Short
Throughout his villanelle, “Saturday at the Border,” Hayden Carruth continuously mentions the “death-knell” (Carruth 3) to reveal his aged narrator’s anticipation of his upcoming death. The poem written in conversation with Carruth’s villanelle, “Monday at the River,” assures the narrator that despite his age, he still possesses the expertise to write a well structured poem. Additionally, the poem offers Carruth’s narrator a different attitude with which to approach his writing, as well as his death, to alleviate his feelings of distress and encourage him to write with confidence.
Cheever, John. “The Swimmer”. Short Fiction: Classic and Contemporary. 6th ed. Ed. Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
“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.
Cheever, John. "The Swimmer." The Northon Anthology American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. E. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.
“Francis says that he must be understood; he was nearly killed in an airplane crash…” (Cheever 76). After this tragic event he wants a reaction from his family, which they are not giving him the sympathy that he wants. “The photograph of his four children laughing into the camera on the beach at Gay Head reproached him” (82). Looking back on how his life is, it is easy to infer that Francis is unhappy with his life after the airplane crash. The even helps him realize what he desires in life. He knows he has a pleasant family and a caring wife but yet; he yearns for something more. Cheever uses stereotypical characterization of suburban communities in all of his writings including “The Country Husband”. “… a writer who wrote about people on the Upper East Side and in the suburbs” (Gordon 1). Based on the journals of Cheever, the common similarities in his characters, settings, and
The story’s theme is related to the reader by the use of color imagery, cynicism, human brotherhood, and the terrible beauty and savagery of nature. The symbols used to impart this theme to the reader and range from the obvious to the subtle. The obvious symbols include the time from the sinking to arrival on shore as a voyage of self-discovery, the four survivors in the dinghy as a microcosm of society, the shark as nature’s random destroyer of life, the sky personified as mysterious and unfathomable and the sea as mundane and easily comprehended by humans. The more subtle symbols include the cigars as representative of the crew and survivors, the oiler as the required sacrifice to nature’s indifference, and the dying legionnaire as an example of how to face death for the correspondent.
Write a comparison of The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World and The Drowned Giant, commenting in detail on the ways in which the authors' use language to convey their respective themes. "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and "The Drowned Giant" by J.G. Ballard are both short stories written with similar plots but explore extremely different themes. In this essay I am going to compare the theme, plot, setting, language choices and stylistic effects between the two short stories and how all these relate back to theme itself. The themes of the stories are totally different. They are both about how societies react to the external world and exotic things, but the meanings are exactly opposite.