One of the founding fathers, the wise Benjamin Franklin once said the words of wisdom, "Lost time is never found again"(Brainyquotes.com). The short story, “The Swimmer”, supports this quote, by conveying the moral to not let time slip away. The story begins on a midsummer day with the main character Neddy Merrill, deciding to pool hop to reach his home. At each stop, he received alcoholic beverages , and based on conversations with others, Neddy has not a clue of past events. He absorbs blows to
Introduction The Swimmer is one of Cheever’s short stories in his tome, ‘The Stories of John Cheever’. He describes the swimmer as a rich and idle young man named Neddy who embarked on a swimming excursion to home on a midsummer Sunday. Neddy begins his venture while highly spirited and encountered allies and cordial neighbors along his way. As he proceeds with his journey, he gets weary and receives disturbing news from his neighbors. He realizes that his friend had a surgery that he cannot recall
Elizabeth Dang Professor Puchalski English 103 October 23, 2014 Short Story Paper The story “The Swimmer’ by John Cheever is describing a middle aged man name Ned, and the events he is going through by swimming home in his friends and neighbors pool. In this short story i will be describing how different pools represent the different journeys in Ned’s life , different mental stages, delusion, changes in weather, alcoholism, and losing respect from his friends and family. Ned is described
disturbing—depending on which way one looks at the uniformity—sense of homogeneity. More specifically, not only do the houses look the same, but generally the residents act, dress, and speaker similarly. Is life better in the suburbs? John Cheever’s short story, “The Swimmer”, set in such an area, begins with the narrator inferring, through protagonist, Neddy Merrill’s actions, that life in upper middle class and upper class suburbs is indeed better; however, as he makes his eight-mile homeward swimming
many artists made this relationship between dream and reality the central focus of their works, giving birth to the artistic movement known as “surrealism” (Vaneigem 96). One such work that embraced this surrealistic approach is John Cheever’s short story, “The Swimmer”, in which the author creates a reality which grows increasingly questionable as the story develops and as more information is conferred upon the reader. The protagonist, Neddy Merrill, is confronted by a progressively harshening reality