John Cheever's The Five-Forty-Eight

In “The Five-Forty-Eight” by John Cheever, we are introduced to Miss Dent and Blake, two people that take the reader on a ride through both love and hate when Miss Dent’s undeniable attraction to Blake and her growth in character take this love story to the next level, an action romance.

When the reader first hears about Miss Dent they might have gotten the impression she was a normal woman, unlike her true personality. Cheever goes on to describe a normal woman with little to no flare to her, “a dark woman-in her twenties, perhaps-who was slender and shy. Her dress was simple, her figure was not much,”(Cheever 5). At this point there is no reason to fear Miss Dent by this description, the reader has no input on her mental stability at this

“He would have expected her to write a rounded backhand…and in her writing there were intermitted traces of this, mixed with clumsy printing.” (Cheever 6). Blake suspects she has mental issues when he sees her handwriting. She didn’t have the smooth back hand handwriting one might expect from a young lady like herself, her handwriting suggests her inner conflict. This is important for the reader to know so he or she is able to feel the sense of fear Blake is feeling from the lack of knowing her mental stability. Not only was she a scatterbrain but she was overly sensitive, she took everything to heart; so when Blake left her house early and fired her she went nuts. Miss Dent wrote Blake a letter confessing her love to him and she starts it with ‘Dear Husband, they say that human love leads us to divine love, but is this true?’” (Cheever 21). She doesn’t take this one night stand lightly, she used husband in her letter instead of just saying Blake. Unlike her personality her

“Most of the many women he had known had been picked for their lack of self-esteem” (Cheever 7). For Blake it was all about him, he just wanted to make himself happy and that was it. He is so conceded that when his wife had forgot to cook dinner he told her he was “not going to speak” to his wife “for two weeks” which is better for him since he wouldn’t have to listen to her for that time (Cheever 10). Even worse than that he and his wife don’t even sleep in the same room. Blake is a very selfish man so this one night stand, of the many he has had, is just another feather in his cap. Which is funny since he is just a simpleton himself. Blake is described as a tall slender man with brown hair that dresses like the rest of the men of his time. The only thing unique to him is his pallor skin and grey eyes. So it is interesting that he finds himself a womanizer when he is just average or even less by looks. Blake is honestly a big asshole, all he does is prey on weak women and take advantage of them; furthermore, when he wouldn’t talk to his wife for two whole weeks after she forgot to cook supper. He doesn’t even show any remorse for his actions throughout the story. One might think he is the one with the mental problems rather than Miss