Biography EssayAlthough some critics have dismissed Cheever as a writer of the "New Yorker school," a chronicler of suburbia, or a clever satirist, his impressive achievements in both the short story...
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John Cheever (1912-1982) was an American writer known for his keen, often critical, view of the American middle class. Known primarily for his short stories, his attention to detail and careful writin...
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Although some critics have dismissed Cheever as a writer of the "New Yorker school," a chronicler of suburbia, or a clever satirist, his impressive achievements in both the short story and the novel b...
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To outward appearances John Cheever was very much a child of the American twentieth century. Born just before World War I, he lived through the halcyon Jazz Age, suffered through the Depression, and...
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Few American writers have been so clear in mapping their recurrent subject matter and themes as John Cheever. From his first published story, "Expelled," he has been concerned with the Fall from a co...
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In the following essay, originally published in Commonweal in 1964, Segel provides an overview of “The Swimmer,” asserting that “Cheever is working with an attitude toward life, a...
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In the following essay, Kozikowski views “The Simmer” as a spiritual allegory, akin to the work of Dante Alighieri.
Cheever's ever-popular, many-faceted short story, “Th...
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In the following essay, Piwinski investigates Cheever's reference to the cities of Lisbon and Hackensack in the opening passage of “The Swimmer.”
The opening of John Cheever...
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In the following essay, Hughes and O'Hara consider “The Swimmer” in terms of Kantian philosophy.
Kantian Moral Abstraction
In Kantian philosophy, morality demands that individu...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1974, Graves offers a close reading of the use of color in “The Swimmer.”
A close reading of John Cheever's “The Swimmer,...
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In the following essay, Slabey declares “The Swimmer” to be “an imaginative vision of American reality,” comparing the story with Washington Irving's “Rip Van...
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In the following essay, Blythe and Sweet probe Cheever's “ironic use of three holy sacraments” in “The Swimmer.”
John Cheever indicates the distance between the g...
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In the following essay, Byrne analyzes Cheever's utilization of a list of names as a narrative device in “The Swimmer,” claiming that the list functions as a symbol “for Ne...
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In the following essay, Bell compares “The Swimmer” to Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream, focusing on motifs of dreams and nightmares.
The opening paragraph of Joh...
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In the following essay, Allen explores allusions to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in Cheever's “The Swimmer.”
Several literary echoes float through John Cheever...
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In the following essay, Mathews examines the narrative and thematic similarities of “The Swimmer” to William Austin's “Peter Rugg, The Missing Man,” citing both as &...
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In the following essay, Blythe and Sweet consider “The Swimmer” to be a representation of the “familiar archetype of the Grail quest.”
Although critics, including oursel...
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Historically it has been viewed that one's place in society is fixed. This concept included the notion that not only was it impossible for one to move up in society, but also that it was difficult fo...
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The two short stories, "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty and "The Swimmer" by John Cheever are not originally meant to be similar, but do have some ideas in common. Although these stories are similar in ...
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In an allegory nothing is what is seems and even when the meaning of something is pinned down it is still a subjective decision. Therefore whichever aspect that is to be defined may have compl...
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Rio de Janeiro (dpa) - "Are you blind?" Upon hearing this question
from his 10-year-old grandson, Eduardo de Rose - head of the medical
commission of the Pan American Sports...
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American swimming star Ian Crocker rarely has much to say. That all changes when he sits down at his computer.He muses about the beauty of the Italian language. He shifts to the jazz stylings of 19...
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Critics of a Navy plan to use dolphins and sea lions to guard waters off the coast of a major submarine base say the ocean is too cold for the plan to work.Other critics who showed up at a public o...
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Kiev (dpa) - Ukrainian emergency workers prevented a pod of
dolphins from drowning an intoxicated man in the Black Sea, the
Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday.
...
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Taipei (dpa) - Veteran Taiwan's strait crossing swimmer Wang Han
Sunday invited swimmers from Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong to
join his team to set a record of swimming ...
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Hamburg (dpa) - Sport must overcome its desire for records in
order to fight doping more efficiently, German Olympic supremo Thomas
Bach said.
Bach said in an...
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Michael Phelps came to the Missouri Grand Prix to prepare for next month's world championships in Australia. He'll leave with at least one world record.Phelps broke his own 200-meter butterfly reco...
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State health officials have a new system for evaluating the water quality at Lake Erie beaches that should give people a better idea of whether it's safe to swim.
Huntington Beach, west of...
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The inner-city youth swimming program here could have inspired many movies, with its stories of children jumping into the pool as novices and climbing out with college scholarships and foundations ...
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World-record holder Brendan Hansen dropped out of the 200-meter breaststroke because of a virus Thursday, spoiling the next chapter in his rivalry with Kosuke Kitajima of Japan at the world swimmin...
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