More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis of the swimmer by john cheever essay
The swimmer john cheever critic
John cheever the swimmer thesis statement
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Swimmer begins with a party at the Westerhazy’s house. All the guests there are of high social standing, judging by the fact that tennis courts, sail bags, and alcohol are mentioned repeatedly. The phrase, “I drank too much” comes up repeatedly and the guests mention this phrase repeatedly. One of these guest is Neddy Merrill. By the context of the story, the reader determines that Neddy is well off and enjoys being part of the culture that his status brings. This culture is one of drinking and one where time seems to stand still, regardless of where a person is, be it by the poolside or whilst traveling. Cheever’s The Swimmer is a deceptively easy read but has an overriding theme that can at first be missed if the reader only notices the weather and alcohol. What is the theme of the Swimmer?
In the Second paragraph Neddy is first mentioned. The narrator describes Neddy as having, “the slenderness of youth”. Yet later in also explains, “He [Neddy] was far from young he had slid down his banister that irning and given the bronze backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack”. At this point it is well known that although Neddy is no longer young, he still views himself as young. He believes that he can waste away his days by the poolside drinking gin and tonic and will never grow older. Sadly he is mistaken and has been substituting reality with his own different one.
Soon Ned has an idea, he will swim home, jumping from swimming pool to swimming pool across the county, taking minor “portages” along the way. The portages become crossings of roads and various yards of people Neddy thinks he knows well. Just before Neddy leaves on his trip he likens himself to a legendary figure. For Ned this means that he views himself as imm...
... middle of paper ...
... the beginning of the story. Time has passed around Ned and he still refuses to believe that time can affect him.
Time passes and there is no way that Ned can stop time. When Ned arrives home he is confronted by an empty home. Ned in all of his bliss and ignorance has not noticed the passing of time. Time has finally caught up to Ned and his world has finally crashed around in him. What was a summer day has now turned from fall to what seems to be the beginning of winter. This is the same for Ned, he once had a summery, joyful life, throughout his quest his life slowly crumbled into what could be equated to as fall, and now at his home he is entering the winter of his life, nothing will be easy and reality has found him.
Works Cited
Cheever, John. "The Swimmer." The Northon Anthology American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. E. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.
Our journey starts in the year 1853 with four Scandinavian indentured servants who are very much slaves at the cold and gloomy headquarters of the Russian-American fur-trading company in Sitka, Alaska. The story follows these characters on their tortuous journey to attempt to make it to the cost of Astoria, Oregon. Our list of characters consists of Melander, who is very much the brains of the operation as he plans the daring escape from the Russians. Next to join the team was Karlson, who was chosen by Melander because he is a skilled canoeman and knows how to survive in the unforgiving landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Third was Braaf, he was chosen because of his ability to steal and hide things, which made him a very valuable asset to the teams escape. Last to join our team is Wennberg who we know is a skilled blacksmith who happens to hear about their plan and forces himself into the equation.
He continues to love to learn and he becomes increasingly interested in the Japanese. He even starts a food drive at his high school for the Japanese. Then Pearl Harbor is bombed. This is when Ned decides he wants to join the marines, but he is too young so he waits until he is 16 to join. At this time he was still technically too young to join but he lies about his age and gets his parents in on it so he can become a marine.
Therefore, Ned had to learn from the ones that taught Ned to become a cattle thief and bush ranger. “As role models he had his uncle and cousin. If they taught anything, it wasn’t how to be an honest law abiding citizen. A dozen of his relative had criminal records.” (Wilkinson, 2002, p. 10). Just like what is expected Ned became a horse and cattle thief, but that didn’t last long. He was sent to prison for receiving a stolen horse that he didn’t know. After two years of hard life in prison, Ned decided to never go there again. Therefore Ned decided to get a job at a timber mill. Ned spent the last three years of hard work at his job, he was a trusted worker and overseer. Even so every time a horse or cattle went missing, the police would always blame it on Ned or his family. Some might’ve been true, but most of them were fake, yet regardless of true or false Ned still had to take the consequence. Nothing will change if he lived his life being harass. For this reason, he became a
water, curved and smooth and green.'; This seems to illustrate the peacefulness of the situation, almost creating a lazy, calm atmosphere. However, the imagery within “The Swimmer'; is quite opposite. “The Swimmer'; tends to portray a scene of force, as there is no evidence of the peaceful interaction between man and water as found in “Lone Bather.'; Evidence of such force ...
The main ideas that are expressed in John Cheever's The Swimmer, is how Neddy lives through a variety of stages of alcoholism and how they each affect his everyday life. In The Swimmer, Neddy takes daily swims through multiple swimming pools. This represents the journeys in his life. He goes from being cheerful to complete sadness and depression. When Neddy is or is not swimming also represents the emotions he is going through. For example, when Neddy is not swimming, he will feel down or angry for no apparent reason. Because of his alcohol addiction, he is usually looking for alcohol during this period of time. Once he has had a few drinks, he is feeling much better and is ready to swim again. “He needed a drink. Whiskey would warm him, pick him up, carry him ...
For example, Ned “joined a committee” (75) that would report on how “the colored was living” (75) in parishes. Ned told the committee that African Americans were not treated any differently than in slavery. He then had to leave Kansas due to the possibility of him being killed for being on the committee. When Ned came back to the south, he built a school. He also told Jane about Mr. Booker T Washington and Frederick Douglass, and what message they propagated. Many people did not like the idea of Ned preaching and educating people like he did. For example, when he had a sermon by the river two weeks before his death, he said,”Your people’s bones and their dust make this place yours more than anything else”(113) this made white people mad enough that they told Albert Cluveau they wanted Ned dead. Albert listened and did brutally kill Ned soon after. Ned was killed simply because he wanted, and did, make a change in society by preaching and educating many
Eiseley, Loren “The Flow of the River” from Fifty Great Essays 2nd ed. 2002 Penguin Academics New York.
Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. “An Historical Allusion In Cheever's 'The Swimmer'.” Studies In Short
In looking back upon his experience in Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote in 1988: ?It is naïve, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism (Nazism) sanctifies its victims. On the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.? (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 40). The victims of National Socialism in Levi?s book are clearly the Jewish Haftlings. Survival in Auschwitz, a book written by Levi after he was liberated from the camp, clearly makes a case that the majority of the Jews in the lager were stripped of their human dignity. The Jewish prisoners not only went through a physical hell, but they were psychologically driven under as well. Levi writes, ??the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts? We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death?? (Levi, 41). One would be hard pressed to find passages in Survival in Auschwitz that portray victims of the camp as being martyrs. The treatment of the Jews in the book explicitly spells out the dehumanization to which they were subjected. It is important to look at how the Jews were degraded in the camp, and then examine whether or not they came to embody National Socialism after this.
Neddy’s character is very similar to Charlie from “Babylon Revisited”. Charlie was very fortunate, he lost both his wife and his daughter due to his uncontrollable alcoholism. However, after “controlling” his drinking problem, he decides that he wants nothing to do with his past life.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Through symbolism the author shows us how Neddy goes from social drinking to destitution. Each stop at a neighbor’s pool gets progressively harder, but he keeps on. Neddy ignores these signs and becomes beaten and finally alone. This truly is a sad journey of a man who destroys himself through alcohol. As the story ends, Neddy realizes that he is alone. Will he change? Get help for his alcoholism? The author leaves us hanging, but at this point we know he is alone, everyone has abandoned him. Neddy has followed the stereotypical footsteps of an alcoholic.
...ned in a boating accident. Abandonment seems to link her life together with the deaths of three children, her mother, her husband, and the suicide of her half-sister (Cliff Notes 2-3).
In John Cheever’s short story, “The Swimmer” he conveys the transformation of the character through the use of the literary element of setting. The story begins in an American, middle class, suburbs. After what seems to be a night of partying and drinking. Neddy Merrill, the main character initially appears very optimistic; he has a perfect family, high social status and very few problems in his life. In spite of his age, he feels young and energetic therefore decides to swim across town through the neighborhood pools. However, his journey becomes less and less enjoyable as the day unfolds. The water become murky, uninviting and he becomes exhausted. Also the people in his surrounding become less cordial including his mistress who wants nothing to do with him. His voyage then comes to an end when he arrives to an empty, abandoned home. The central idea suggests that an unhealthy obsession with the materialistic aspects of life can lead to alienation.
“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”. "Esteban's memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that the future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war medals and, pointing to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun's bright that the sunflowers don't know which way to turn, yes, over there, that's Esteban's Village (Handsomest)" "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World Summary" is a short story written by Gabriel Marquez based in a small fishing village somewhere in Latin America. This is a mystical, mythological story that pulls you into the story of how one man could change a whole village. In this village you had your dull women and you had the sailors who main objective was just fishing. For a while they were content in the monotony of their lives until a mystical larger than life man floated on shore, who throughout the story transforms this village from a dull gray simple village, to a vibrant and bright village that ships of the sea can see from far away; this village is known as "Esteban's Village".
Frustration has set in by this point, as our hero Rip cannot explain the events that have happened to him. In one night, his world had drastically changed, and no logical explanation can be found. The larger issue at hand, though, is the identity crisis that Van Winkle is suffering. Upon a detailed analysis of this climactic section, two dominating themes are found: confusion and the issue of personal identity. There are constant references to these ideas throughout the selection.