The Swimmer Essay

The story “The Swimmer” by John Cheever is a story about an old man who is having a difficult time accepting that time has passed in his life. With the intention to visit an old friend he decides he is going to swim through the pools and travel through the gardens of the people who were once present in his life. As he is going on this journey he starts to realize that there are things that have changed that he was completely unaware of. The neighbors and friends he once knew lives had changed and the main character, Neddy Merril doesn’t seem to understand why this is. While you continue reading you watch him start to come to this realization that the components of his youth have faded away and that despite his hopes that nothing has changed

While swimming “around the world” he starts to realize that he was missing a piece of time. He is living in a past time mentality where his wife and four daughters are at home waiting for him to come home but in reality the home he is referring to is empty. There is no one there and when someone he runs into during his swim tries to address what had happened he is in complete denial, he will not even hear what Mrs Halloran said, “”We've been terribly sorry to hear about all your misfortunes, Neddy.” “My misfortunes?” Ned asked, “I don't know what you mean.” ”Why we heard that you’d sold your house and that your poor children…” ”I don't recall having sold the house,” Ned said, “and he girls are at home.” ” (The Swimmer, Cheever Page 239) This is one of the few opportunities throughout the story where we see that there is something off about Neddy’s entire journey and his memory of the past. “As Ned’s journey continues, small notes of uncertainty are sounded, a sense of the uncanny creeps into the text, and the reliability of Ned’s memory is called into question.” (WB Gooderham,

We shall presume that the long afternoon spent by the Westerhazys' pool is typical of many other afternoons that were similarly spent. Neddy's plan to swim home seems to be only the latest in a string of ideas that have suddenly occurred to him.
As Neddy`s adventure progresses, we see that point is certainly passing tons greater faster than Neddy realizes.”In the course of the journey the reader’s enchantment with the bright illusion of leisured lives vividly lived shades into recognition of sad, perhaps even tragic, delusions of grandeur.” (Mambroll, 2021) Leaves and hedges turn yellow and red, the constellations withinside the sky change, and the air receives colder. Friends aren't here while he expects them to be, he faces scorn from the human beings he`d as soon as scorned, his mistress needs not anything to do with him, and he learns that a pal has been very ill. All of those adjustments have befell without Neddy`s knowledge. Neddy questions his memory, however he additionally wonders whether or not he has really denied fact to a risky degree. His friends have acted their age and confronted personal problems, while he has resisted. His former mistress even asks him, “Will you ever grow up?” Only at the end of the tale while Neddy faces his dark, empty residence does he understand that point has passed. He has attempted to disregard it, however its passage has tested to be