Imagine being sat in a small box, and just doing the same thing over and over again. You would slowly go insane, or just get tired of everything. The need for something new and different will slowly, but surely sneak up on you, and eventually take control. You want freedom. The freedom that has been tearing you up from the inside will be, and you want to achieve it at all costs. The theme in the short story “The Swimmer” written by S.J. Butler is freedom. The story has a third person narrator with an all-knowing function, with focus on the story 's main character and the setting she is in, when we first meet her. The story starts off, in what seems like a peaceful area, surrounded by nature. The first five sentences present the physical setting in the shape of the weather. The sentence "Three weeks of windless sun" (P.1, l.3) sets the basic setting, which seems like a peaceful, harmonic natural environment. But to be less interpretive, the setting is simply described as a series of hot summer days, which have lasted over three weeks, but without any kind …show more content…
She is amazed by her beauty and knows that it can be a very dangerous animal, but she feels drawn to the animal due to the fear. She is in the water for a long time, which helps her in her process of overcoming her fear, while she also tries to get a bit closer to the beautiful swan. She finds the courage to go into the river once more, because of her interest in the swan. This creates a desire inside her to keep getting into the river. She gets closer to the swan every time she enters the river. she even gets close enough to touch it. Here we get a perfect comparison of the woman and the swan. "It doesn 't hiss, nor arch its wings. It remains untouched by her presence." (P.3, l.110). Here we see how the woman and the swan are at peace with each other. This can be because of them getting used to each other over a certain period of time, or the river having some sort of uniting