American Literature

On the outset, Cheever depicts everyday characters engaged in ordinary feats, but his art lies in his extraordinary treatment of his subjects, through vivid images and spectacular storylines. His short story The Swimmer is an example of this treatment, as it is about Neddy, a middle-aged suburban dweller, who decides to swim his way back home one fine afternoon through a series of pools. His unsettling experiences at each private pool and a public one make him realize that this is not the kind of safe trip and adventure he had in mind. In fact, it becomes a lifelong journey at a fast forward pace through the life he thought he knew so well.

With this realization, his once familiar, cozy, and secure world begins to feel loop-sided and strange. During his journey, Neddy finds each pool and its owner unwelcoming and evasive than the other and finally ends up at a public pool. Entering a grimy public pool is something he never imagined or planned as part of his journey, as he was looking for a cushioned form of adventure yet this exposure ends up forming a significant part of his realization. Initially, Neddy is afraid that he might contaminate himselfdamage his own prosperousness and charmby swimming in this murk (608). But then he has to remind himself that this unpleasantness shouldnt bother him too much, because he was an explorer, a pilgrim, and that this was merely a stagnant bend in the Lucinda River (608). It is, however, ironical how the guards unceremoniously turn him out of the public pool for not wearing an identification disk. Neddy then realizes that outside the luxury of his private pool, he is a nobody and needs an identification number. The public pool in fact sounds like a prison cold, oppressive, and sanitized. On the other hand, Neddy finds no relief even at the private pools of his friends, as they are equally cold and unwelcoming. According to Riley, Cheevers characters deny reality and to escape totally into a private vision , they do not succeed when that vision cuts them off from social and personal bonds and responsibilities or from a realistic assessment of their own limitations (21-26).

Thus, as pilgrim, Neddy must pass all the terrains of Lucinda River private as well as public, to experience the variedness of lifestyles, the yawning gap between classes. Thus, the sharp contrast between the murkiness of the public pool as compared to the gleam of the private pools shows the emptiness and deceptive quality of the affluent suburban world to Neddy and to us.