The Delusion of Time
Within John Cheever’s short story, The Swimmer, fiction estranges the reader from the timeline of events because the information given by the protagonist, Neddy Merrill is unreliable. As the story progresses, the audience can observe how Neddy becomes aware of the changes in his surroundings, his physical transformation, as well as a shift in the way others interact with him. All of these developments deceive the rate at which time is passing throughout the story.
The reader can immediately identify that Neddy is misleading through the small clues concerning his environment, that he notices, but instantly dismisses. During Neddy’s journey, he sits in the Levy’s gazebo and waits out the storm when notices that, “The force of the wind had stripped a Maple of its red and yellow leaves” but concludes that “Since it was midsummer the tree must be blighted” (Cheever 176). The minute Neddy begins to sense that something is not quite right he neglects his suspicions and continues on his voyage. Even as he notices different constellations in the sky, he questions, “What had become of the constellations of midsummer?”(Cheever 180). Neddy is unable to comprehend the amount of time that had passed since he commenced his journey down the Lucinda River; therefore the reader is alienated from the
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reality of how much time has passed. As Neddy’s body changes and ages rapidly over the duration of the story, the reader notices how he grows weaker as well as skinnier, indicating that a lot of time has passed.
At the beginning of the story, “he never used the ladder,” (Cheever 174) because he was youthful and physically fit. Neddy eventually grows so weak that he can’t even lift himself out of the pool anymore. When his pants are too loose, he wonders if, “During the space of an afternoon, he could have lost some weight” (Cheever 178). Even as his body ages and weakens Neddy cannot comprehend the amount of time that is passing, therefore, leaving the reader with confusion regarding the
timeline. Finally, the most significant change that occurs in Neddy’s life is the way people treat him. At the beginning of the story, Neddy was perceived as a well-to-do man who has friends and fits into society. The reader clearly acknowledges time has passed as Neddy tries to cross the road and, “He was laughed at jeered at, a beer can was thrown at him,” (Cheever 177). “Strangers on the road have no respect for him anymore. His close friend called him a ‘gate crasher.’” (Cheever 179). He is unwelcome in society as well as amongst people who were once his friends. Through this transition, the reader views how Neddy goes from a youthful man to a weak outcast; and the audience is also able to decipher that a long duration of time has passed. In conclusion in John Cheever’s, The Swimmer, the author can alienate the reader from apprehending the rate of which time is passing within the short story, all because Neddy is incapable of comprehending time. Throughout the story, Neddy picks up on clues but is not able to put the clues together until he finds his house empty at the end of the story. Neddy dismisses the physical changes in his body ,the differences in his environment, and the shift in the way others treat him. The author is able to travel through a significant amount of time while compressing it all into one day.
1. Chapter 3, page 5, #3: “A little fog hung over the river so that as I neared it I felt myself becoming isolated from everything except the river and the few trees beside it. The wind was blowing more steadily here, and I was beginning to feel cold.”
As he slouches in bed, a description of the bare trees and an old woman gathering coal are given to convey to the reader an idea of the times and the author's situation. "All groves are bare," and "unmarried women (are) sorting slate from arthracite." This image operates to tell the reader that it is a time of poverty, or a "yellow-bearded winter of depression." No one in the town has much to live for during this time. "Cold trees" along with deadness, through the image of "graves," help illustrate the author's impression of winter. Wright seems to be hibernating from this hard time of winter, "dreaming of green butterflies searching for diamonds in coal seams." This conveys a more colorful and happy image showing what he wishes was happening; however he knows that diamonds are not in coal seams and is brought back to the reality of winter. He talks of "hills of fresh graves" while dreaming, relating back to the reality of what is "beyond the streaked trees of (his) window," a dreary, povern-strucken, and cold winter.
Throughout the story, John Cheever uses the the literary device of symbolism to illustrate the theme of a cyclic human experience that erodes away every day. Throughout the story "The Swimmer," Cheever uses this device to represent a plethora of symbols. For example, the main and initial symbol perceived in everyones minds are the aqua swimming pools. While wasting the day drinking at his neighbors house, he has an epiphany to swim through all the pools on the path back home. Before this however, the main character, Neddy, complains about the days where everyone just moans that they drank too much last night. The day is tedious, and nothing out of the ordinary occurs on the horizon. Neddy's trip turns out to be not much different. For that every pool the stereotypical suburban scrub swims through, he only just goes through a period of time and monotony. These pools are all the same, and when he comes out the other side of one, he isn't even aware of what has just passed. Analyzers of this poem have muttered, “He has been swimming in the Westerhazys' pool. And what does one swim in a pool but repetitious laps? Even the stroke he uses is repetitious” (Blythe & Sweet). This is backed up by Cheever's writing: "He swam a choppy crawl, breathing either with every stroke or every fourth stroke and counting somewhere in the back of his mind the one-two one-two of a flutter kick" (Cheever). Cheever’s intentions along with Blythe and Sweet in these quotes are that nothing is new, everything is the same. For that many can relate to this idea, and for that everyone is a swimmer in their own way. Swimming unvaried strokes in similar pools of lost time and repetition.
Cheever, John, ”The Swimmer”, Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 12th ed. San Francisco: Longman, 2013.250-257
People often use the expressions “a New York minute”, “time flies” and “wasting time” to describe the passage of time; however, these idioms indicate time is something that can be controlled, altered, or differentiated. Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad presents time exactly how it is: relative. Egan breaks away from the structurally conventional form of traditional novels and presents time as a “goon”, a foolish entity that controls every character in this story and hinders them from becoming successful individuals. This “goon” leaves no one unscathed; everyone faces the wrath of time and all that comes with it. Egan uses music, as well as the non-linear structure of the book,
Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. “Man-Made vs. Natural Cycles: What Really Happens in ‘The Swimmer..’” Studies in Short Fiction 27.3 (Summer 1990): 415-418. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 120. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Swimmer is a short story published in 1964 by American author John Cheever. Most stories can have emotional impacts on the readers but some take the readers in the edge of reality. John’s writing can be categorized as factually movement known as realism. The story is frequently reflected as a symbol about decline, the aging progression, mid-life crisis and the life cycle as a whole.
Bakhtin, M.M. "Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel: Notes toward a Historical Poetics." Michael Holquist, ed. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981. 84-258.
Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit from the Goon Squad is a series of many short stories revolving around several different characters who all interconnect in one way or another. One of Egan’s main themes seems to revolve around the concept of time, and how short life really is. A most pivotal passage from the novel on pages 123 through 132 surrounds around the character Stephanie, and her interactions with her brother Jules and a once renowned rock star trying to make his comeback named Bosco. Egan’s view on time and its relation to the human lifespan in this passage is dependent upon her use of the following literary tools: tone, figurative and symbolic language, and syntax.
foreswearing of getting more established and not having the capacity to face his issues. Generally speaking, Neddy utilizes the water as a physical and mental boundary in the middle of him and this present reality. His steady submersion in water demonstrates his obliviousness. He utilizes the water to separation himself from his companions and
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Written to follow the natural progression of the mind, the narrator moves from watching the frost form on his bedroom window to thinking about his childhood and how the frost was his only connection to the world outside his school walls. This thought leads him to ponder the great opportunity that his son will have to grow up in nature and, eventually, his mind returns to the frost, once again referring to its “secret ministry” (72). Through this, Coleridge depicts nature as a catalyst for the transcendence of time. The narrator describes the fire as making him a “toy of thought” (23) and allows the frost on the window to connect him to his past memories of “[gazing] upon the bars to watch that fluttering stranger” (25). The narrator, however, is also prompted by the frost to explore his imagination, as he pictures his son enjoying a much different childhood than he in a world where the “seasons shall be sweet to thee” (64). In each of these cases, nature was the cause of intellectual stimulation, and thus, the common link to the past, present and future. Through the continuous connections of the narrator’s thoughts, Coleridge also indicates ones ability to transcend time within the mind. While sitting beside his “cradled infant [slumbering] peacefully” (7), the narrator demonstrates his ability to remove himself from the present and insert himself into the past
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