Summary:
This is a literary analysis of John Cheever's short story "The Swimmer."
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 completely different meanings depending on the individual reader. In John Cheever's "The Swimmer" there is certainly no shortage of aspects, ranging from very small details to broad encompassing settings, that have a different meaning other than what they literally are. One such facet is that the protagonist of this story, Neddy Merril, is swimming a staggering eight miles to his house by way of neighborhood private and public pools. Throughout this journey Neddy becomes closer and closer to the realization of what is really happening to him and the reason for this is that the pools he is swimming in are actually representative of the alcohol he is consuming. This connection, between water and alcohol, will be found and explained through close critical analysis of this story in the following paragraphs.
The most obvious observation that would lead to the conclusion of a connection between water and alcohol is that at most of the houses Neddy visits he either asks for a drink, is given a drink, or just takes a drink. What ties all of these drinks together in similarity is that he always drinks either before or after his swim, never during. This might suggest that the act of swimming is actually like the act of drinking because for Neddy it seems the more he swims the more intoxicated he becomes. One example of this correlation is when Ned visits the Levy's and takes it on himself to pour a drink from a pitcher the Levy's had made. This event stands out among the rest because in all of the other situations he was given a drink by someone. Even though the Levy's would have probably given him a drink the fact that he actually took the drink himself makes it seem as if his drinking is less of a social habit and more of an addiction. This relates to his dedication to swimming all the way to home because in both his swimming and drinking habits he seems unable to stop. Another instance where he drinks is when he visits the Biswanger's party near the end of his journey. At this house, something happens that is not uniform with the way he receives his other drinks. Here he is treated with an ill temper from the owner because of his interactions with her previously. Because of this temper, he is called a gate crasher and the bartender basically dusts him off and gives him a watered down drink. Combined with Ned's run in with his ex-mistress, this represents how his journey goes downhill from the beginning and shows how he started out sober and ended up intoxicated.
Upon even further scrutiny "The Swimmer" yields yet another link between Ned's swimming and drinking. This link is the use of words that are normally used to refer to drinking in instances in which they are not normally used. When there is such a focus on such terms it makes the reader believe that they were put there for a purpose. The amazing thing is that the purpose seems to prove that there is actually a link between everything and alcohol. For instance, in the first paragraph, when Ned is at the Westerhazy's with his wife, Mr. Donald Westerhazy says that everyone had "drunk too much," the night before. Although this is actually directly referring to drinking and does not have establish a connection with the water yet, it does set the mood for the entire short story because it is in the first paragraph. Therefore, the effect is that the reader will already have a disposition to see connections between the water and the alcohol. A more direct example of this purposefully explicit misuse of words is when Ned is observing his surroundings and he imagines the he could "gulp into his lungs the components of that," setting. The idea of gulping things into his lungs suggests that he could actually drink things into his lungs which furthers the connection between drinking and all other things.
A third and final suggestion of a relationship between the water that Ned swims in and the alcohol that he drinks is that when Ned is in the water he is content with the idea of swimming all the way home which is not an idea that normal coherent people make. However, the only time he doubts that he should continue or feels any discomfort his journey is when he his out of the water. An illustration of this would be when Ned gets out of the pool at the Bunker's he had just smiled at the Tomlinson's and seemed happy, then he ran around the side of the house and the gravel cut his feet. This seems to parallel how a drunk experiences discomfort only when he isn't drinking and drinks to escape the discomfort, just like Neddy and his swimming. Another example of this point is when he is stuck on one side of highway and is waiting for to pass. When Ned is here he thinks about turning back and going home and he rationalizes that decision. In the end he decides to keep going even after realizing that the idea of swimming eight miles to get to his house was somewhat of a flawed idea. This seems to correspond with a person who is drunk taking a break from drinking and almost realizing what is going on and still falling back under the influence of the alcohol.
In conclusion, it seems that through the analysis of the short story "The Swimmer" that John Cheever purposefully included a real connection between the water that his protagonist swam and the alcohol that he drank. Also, through further consideration it seems that a part of the reason of this short story might be a commentary on the fact that in societies where affluence is present there tends to be a large amount of addiction. It could be assumed that this idea might be because the author believes that material comfort breads unrest and mental illness to its beholders.
This is the complete article, containing 1,042 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
