SOURCE: Slabey, Robert M. “John Cheever: The ‘Swimming’ of America.” In Critical Essays on John Cheever, edited by R. G. Collins, pp. 180-91. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1983.
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 Winkle,” suggesting that both tales are “re-visions of archetypal Americans and situations which link the destiny of characters with the meaning of American history.”
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