In the following essay, Trachtenberg discusses the "Marivaudian being" as it relates to "Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning." The "Marivaudian being" is a term invented by the eighteenth-century French dramatist Pierre Marivaux.

Art proves. . . disappointing as a means of interpreting its subject in "Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning," in which the narrator records his observations about Kennedy, describes episodes in his life, and provides snatches of conversation or statements he is supposed to have made. Each of the segments is given its own heading; none is accorded more importance than any of the others. They do not build toward some definitive revelation or in their totality establish a definitive portrait. Collectively they serve more as a catalog than a coherent perspective from which to view their subject. . . . Kennedy proves more various, more surprising, even mysterious, finally capable of wide ranges of behavior which seem impossible to reconcile...