American Literature

In short stories and novels, journeys usually serve as tests on which characters embark and through which they realize their destiny as well as limits. Neddy Merrills journey back home through swimming is a form of holy pilgrimage for him, which would allow him to move through life with no bag or baggage, no attachment or connection with the world he thought he knew so well. Neddys descent into the public pool is as much significant in his journey as that in the private pools, as it signifies an important constituent of his realizations.

Neddy starts off at his neighbours pool i.e., Westerhazys pool, which is interconnected with 15-16 other pools, one of which is his - the destination he is headed towards. However, what starts as an adventure turns into a phantasmagoria, as the journey begins to look strange and tedious he ends up in a dry pool and then a public one. This transition shows that his adventure wont be as safe, predictable, and familiar as he perceived it to be. In fact, it would lead him through unfamiliar and often perilous terrains, so that he is able to view the lifestyle of his class from a detached distance in order to realize its emptiness and deceptive quality. Thus, when Neddy ends up in a public pool, like a snob he is afraid that he might contaminate himselfdamage his own prosperousness and charmby swimming in this murk (608). He then reminds himself that he was an explorer, a pilgrim, and that this was merely a stagnant bend in the Lucinda River (608). However, when he is shouted out of the public pool by the guards for not wearing an identification disk, Neddy realizes that his affluence and social class have protected him from the realities of lower class existence and its realities so far.

In the zeal of being an explorer, he forgets the fact that in the public sphere he is not known by his social standing i.e., the Neds and he needs the social trapping of an identity card or a social security number. Thus, Lucinda River, with its private and public bents, shows contrasting variedness of life in America, the gap between classes. It is also a time travelling device, signifying the movement of time unrelenting, fast, overlapping, confusing. The waters movement provides a swift transition from realism to surrealism. As the water turns murky in contrast to the gleam of the private pools, the reality of perfect, narcissist and luxurious suburban world, and the materialism of the American dream seem to unveil. According to Donaldson, the Marxist version of the story shows that the modern American society is largely socially stratified and unhappy despite the abundance of backyard private pools (202).