Literary Analysis of The Swimmer Thesis: Cheever uses symbolism, imagery, and tone to convey the theme of narcissism and suburban emptiness during the 1960’s. Symbolism Pools Storms Seasons End of youth Decline Imagery Setting Characters Tone Conclusion: Cheever’s use of literary devices drives the plot of the delusion of suburban emptiness. Literary Analysis of The Swimmer The Swimmer by John Cheever was published in 1964. The short story show the reader the emptiness many experienced during the mid-century white flight. The Swimmer gives a view into the life of Ned Merrill, an affluent suburban man’s life. Cheever uses symbolism, imagery, and tone to convey the theme of narcissism and suburban emptiness during the 1960’s. In The Swimmer, Cheever uses symbolism as a tool to portray the theme of the short story. One symbol the author uses throughout the story is pools. The description of each pool shows the reader how Ned Merrill changes as a character. At the beginning of the story, the pools represent Merrill’s youthfulness and energy. “The first pools Ned …show more content…
At the beginning of the story, the tone is light hearted and relaxed. When Neddy decides to start his quest home, he names it Lucinda River after his wife. “Lucinda stands for "light" and what was supposed to be a bright, sunny, and warm journey leaves him in darkness, storms (both outside and in his mind), and a painful end” ("The Swimmer" by John Cheever: Summary and Analysis). Halfway through the story, the tone begins to turn dark and sad. Before, Neddy felt like a heroic like figure, but when he has to cross Route 424, he starts to doubt himself. This is the point in the story when the tone starts to shift. After this, he has bad experiences at his “friends’” pools and feels unwelcome. By the end of his quest, Ned is exhausted and unable to finish swimming the length of a pool. Neddy’s physical decline aligns with the change in
“He breathed deliberately imagining himself as calm as the pond” Mikaelson uses this simile to explain to us how sitting in the cold pool every morning and imagining the calm still surface Cole is relieved of his anger. Soaking in the pool every morning helps Cole to realize that he has to overcome his anger to heal. Cole still carries the ancestor rock up the hill everyday after his soak to help himself deal with his
Laurie Colwin (1944-1992) was born in Manhattan, New York. She was a prolific writer and her very first works were published in the New Yorker. Her first short story collection was published in 1974. Her stories were written about love, relationships, and being happy in general, however, this story “The Man Who Jumped into the Water” is quite a bit different from the others. Hiding behind a persona to get away from reality can lead someone to a breaking point because a person 's troubles catch up to them.
Chris McCandless sought to find his happiness in the wilderness. Krakauer explains why and how McCandless went on the dangerous journey to Alaska in the novel, Into the Wild. Although many readers have thought he was unprepared and mentally ill, McCandless believed that society restricted people from understanding themselves. People are so focused in a lifestyle where they get an education, find a career and get a job from there. McCandless believed humans are focused on social status that they have forgotten to live without society.
One of the examples of symbolism is the fish being stuck in the tank isolated from society. Reynolds states “After putting the fish in a tank, he asked us to name it and feed it every day. There was only one rule - a non-negotiable. We could not, under any
In John Cheever 's “The Swimmer”, Neddy Merrill’s life is surrounded by rose-tinted surrealism. In the story, Neddy decides to be adventurous, and to swim in each of his neighbor’s swimming pools. With each passing pool, and each encounter with his neighbors, the story begins to take a dark turn, and a turn from Neddy’s rosie memories to the hard truth. When Neddy ventures to his old friend’s house, he realizes that they have sold the property awhile ago. He was completely unaware of his friends moving out.
She then gives credibility to her claim by saying that Wharton “ranks with the greatest writers in her creation of setting and atmosphere.” She then compares the colors of Ethan Frome to the white of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick to show that while the book lacks color, it also has small touches of color in important things/people in the book: in Mattie’s cheeks and the pickle dish. Comparing the two books with one another gives her statements about the colors and their meanings some credibility. White proceeds to argue the point of how the snowy setting makes the story fall together, and of how Ethan’s emotions mirror the landscape. Both points use logos to convince the audience of the validity of White’s point.
In John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player” the poet uses literary devices to depict the existing way of life of a once-famous sportsperson. Flick Webb was in before times a gifted athlete on his high school basketball team, and he was commendable of much awe. However, Flick never acquired any other skills to prepare him for a future. Accordingly, he now is locked into an unskilled job and his former glories have pale to all but Flick himself. Updike has created a character that is at this point in time going nowhere and spends most of his time thinking about his former days of glory.
Mastery Assignment 2: Literary Analysis Essay Lee Maracle’s “Charlie” goes through multiple shifts in mood over the course of the story. These mood are ones of hope and excitement as Charlie and his classmates escape the residential school to fear of the unknown and melancholy as Charlie sets off alone for home ending with despair and insidiousness when Charlie finally succumbs to the elements . Lee highlights these shifts in mood with the use of imagery and symbolism in her descriptions of nature.
The short story, “The Swimmer” by John Cheever shows the journey of a man, Neddy Merrill, swimming in the many pools through his county to his home. It took him a very long time to do this, but his perception of time was very hard understand as the story went on. Throughout his journey, he drank a lot of alcohol. The consumption of alcohol was able to get him through the many pools, but at the end he was very weak and confused. At every pool he stopped at, he asked the homeowners for a drink.
In a “Jug of Silver”, Capote uses visual description to provide the picture of what the reader sees the characters as. The details Capote used
Scott Fitzgerald and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway feature imagistic descriptions which play to the reader’s senses to engage them in the atmosphere of their literature. Both authors appeal to all five senses in their descriptions to best encourage their audience’s ability to embody their fictional worlds. The use of sensory descriptors created an atmosphere or mood which is then conveyed to the reader through the use of imagery and figurative language. The reader can then better engage with the literature and be further transported to the fictional world which the respective author has created for them. Both Hemingway and Fitzgerald excel at addressing the senses in their imagistic styles of writing, allowing them to better convey the mood of their literature and better connect with their
Neddy’s decisions to indulge himself in alcohol to forget, led to his physical and emotional downfall in the story. “It was probably the first time in his adult life that he had ever cried, certainly the first time in his life that he had ever felt so miserable, cold, tired, and bewildered. He could not
Life experience has taught me that perseverance is integral to keep a community progressing towards its goals. Perseverance is at my very core. My life has been dominated by competitive swimming for the last fourteen years, filled by long, hard, lonely practices for two to three hours at a time. Looking at the same straight black line at the bottom of the pool, except for an occasional reprieve to look at the ceiling when doing backstroke. What sane person would subject themselves to what appears to be torture?
The novel, The Old Man and the Sea, is a story about an old man, Santiago, who experienced great adversity but did not give up. The author, Ernest Hemingway, describes how an old man uses his experience, his endurance and his hopefulness to catch a huge marlin, the biggest fish he has ever caught in his life. The old man experienced social-emotional, physical, and mental adversity. However, despite the overwhelming challenges, he did not allow them to hold him back but instead continued to pursue his goal of catching a fish with determination. Santiago’s character, his actions and the event in the novel reveals an underlying theme that even when one is facing incredible struggles, one should persevere.
Notorious Ned Alcohol and denial are what fuel Neddy Merrill’s decision to swim across pools to reach his suburban home in John Cheever’s short story “The Swimmer”. This story represents the American Dream for a period of time, but then the truth comes out. Neddy is no longer living the fancy, rich life with his family. Instead, he lives only for the next drink and thoughts of his former life. The main character, Neddy Merrill, is an oblivious, selfish man that is going through a midlife crisis.