Swimmer: Why Pools And Their Implications On 1960's Culture

The Swimmer: Why pools and their implications on 1960’s culture The use of a swimming pool in the summertime can be seen as a mundane and everyday task, but John Cheever’s The Swimmer portrays, in a very brilliant way, the way on how a swimming pool can mean so much more than meets the eyes. In the story, Neddy Marill is a man depicted with vigor and youth with every stride, and one day, Neddy decides that he wants to make his way to his house through the existing pool system of the local resident that he was very good friends with everybody and believes this journey to be of the upmost importance. The day seems to be in peak of summer when the journey begins, but as Neddy makes his way through the neighborhood, the neighbors begin to be more hostile toward him, where they use to be nice and even offer him drinks, and Neddy begins to question his

As the story progresses, things begin to become more bleak and somber as Neddy begins to grow fatigued and struggles to finish the journey he started, and throughout the story Neddy grows thirsty, not for water but for alcohol. After all the tribulation to get home, Neddy finally arrives home, cold and weak, only to find it in disarray and abandoned, and leaving the reader to interpret how much time has passed. The swimmer is an excellent example of how Cheever depicts the American middle class alcoholism and its symbolic implications throughout the story. In light of Cheever’s The swimmer, Cheever tells the story in how contemporary American Middle Class is depicted in the story and how it is symbolism for the effects of alcoholism in family, social life, and the effect on one’s self. Primarily, Cheever explores how the pool may