The Vague Eeriness of The Swimmer

The Swimmer, by John Cheever, is a short yet intriguing story that left me feeling quite unsettled. The story is told through the third person limited perspective of Neddy Merrill, an ordinary man from a seemingly old-fashioned suburb. One night he decided to go for a swim, claiming he's going to swim across the county. So, he starts in the pool of the neighbor's house which he and his wife are at and has at it.

Though what he's doing seems perfectly normal, there's a strange sort of eerie vibe that the story gives off. For one, Ned is jumping into his neighbor's pools, swimming the length of them, and getting out and running to the next pool- once even crossing a highway where he is ridiculed by passing cars for being only in his swim trunks. This is the first time the readers see that what he's doing isn't received without notice in his suburb. Throughout his swim, the readers get to hear Ned's thoughts and learn about his past experiences. We find out that he and his wife don't go to many social events, there may be trouble with his daughters, and that he may be having financial problems.

Even though most of what's going through his mind seems to be ordinary, he starts to feel uneasy and indifferent once he arrives at the pool of the Biswangers. His feelings are confirmed when Mrs. Biswanger approaches him and rudely calls him a "gate crasher".

Through the limited third person perspective of Ned, the readers are left with quite a few questions. Why is he doing what he's doing? At the end of the story, Ned goes back to his house to find it empty and with no one home. I felt really troubled at this discovery, because it confirmed the gossip people had been saying about him- such as that he has no money, and that something has happened with his family.

After the discovery of his house, Ned vaguely recalls that "it has been some time since they had employed a maid or a cook." We never get any explanation as to what happened to Ned mentally to make him forget like this, whether it was simply repression or something more. For such a simple story, I love how well the tension was built up and how we never quite find out what happened to Ned or his daughters or house.

The Swimmer: Repressing Problems

The Swimmer reminded me a lot of how humanity tries to repress bad things when they happen, and chooses to run away from problems and not face them head on. In the story, Ned takes on what is seemingly a cathartic journey through a four mile swim in each of the pools in his suburban county, only later does the reader find out that Ned is actually trying to somewhat "drown" his pain away. As Ned swims through the last pools, he is unable to stem the memories of his financial and family disasters any longer, and finally faces them head on at the end when he arrives at his empty house. I found parallels to this in real life when we try to turn away from something that we know is inherently bad or that we have caused by trying to convince ourselves that it is not, and not realizing the significance of the problem until it is too late (eg. environmental pollution, the migrant crisis, sexual assault on college campuses).

 I think another key component of the story is also seeing how and why the problem that Ned has arose. Ned lives in a shallow and superficial wealthy life without seeing the fragility of it from the outside, or the fact that most of his intrinsic problems that he has are caused by this lifestyle he lives or once lived. This concept is equally important to apply outside of fiction as well to realize the problems we have are ones we created for ourselves.

Swimming in Shallow Swimming Pools

In "The Swimmer", the main character, Ned, struggles with his loss of power as an upperclass suburban man. The story starts out with Ned being super happy with how his life is going. For some reason, he decides to travel all the way home by swimming in all the different swimming pools on the way home. It seems that with every pool he swims in, he starts to become more and more upset. He deals with his neighbors and peers and friends being mean to him because, as we later find out, he's lost all of his money. I think this just represents the shallowness of the upperclass society in some cases. On the outside, it seems great, but in reality, people just like you for your money.

Sisyphus and The Swimmer

As I read "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus, I found myself comparing Sisyphus to Neddy, the protagonist of "The Swimmer" by John Cheever. I think that Neddy resembles Sisyphus at a time before Camus' analysis of him: a prequel to Camus' essay. 

Camus takes interest in the time that Sisyphus spends descending the hill as the rock rolls down. Camus describes this time as a tragic "hour of consciousness" in which Sisyphus is acutely aware of the futility of his labor. Yet, Camus believes that, by acknowledging his suffering and seemingly purposeless existence, Sisyphus becomes superior to his own fate. Thus, he describes Sisyphus as victorious.

In "The Swimmer," Neddy approaches this "hour of consciousness." Unlike Sisyphus, he is so hopeful and driven by the goal of accomplishing his task that he is blissfully ignorant of his own suffering. He continues to swim towards his imagined home, unaware of his social and mental degeneration. Only when he reaches his empty house does he realize the gravity of his situation. 

Perhaps Sisyphus was once like Neddy: hopefully pushing the rock up the hill with a sense of purpose and believing that he might actually complete the task. And maybe, like Neddy at the end of the story, he had a moment when he realized that his labor truly had no purpose other than to distract him from the reality of his suffering. 

Protagonist Presentation

So, this occurred to me today at the end of class when the question was put on the board asking how Colette's "The Secret Woman," and Freeman's "Old Woman Magoun" related. The other story we have discussed so far is Cheever's "The Swimmer,"and even though it has a far less feminist message than the other two, it got me wondering about how the protagonists send messages.

In "Old Woman Magoun," the feminist message is epitomized in the protagonist and namesake of the story, Old Woman Magoun. She is a force to be reckoned with and refuses to submit to anyone; she is only dominated by Nelson Barry and even still his will is not completed. The story itself contains many elements, including but not limited to Benjamin-esque binaries, parent-figure and child relationships, definitions of maturity and growth, and gender roles, but despite these different themes the most apparent one is brought about by Old Woman Magoun herself. Her presence shifts the focus to her role as a woman in society and at a personal level, and sparks critical thinking about the other characters in the novel in relation to her.

"The Secret Woman," on the other hand, is from a man's perspective, following a costumed husband whose name we never learn. Despite the ambiguity of his physical character, the man's perspective of what's going on around him really brings out the prominent focus of the story, which is the sexual expression of women, particularly his wife. The last paragraph best describes his transforming feelings, and even if the reader had gone the whole story reading into the themes of mystery, betrayal, deceit and anonymity, which are all important in their own right, the main character's thoughts and perceptions brings out one of the central topics of the story.

"The Swimmer" is fairly different as it only really follows one character, Neddy, and his journey, but the way Neddy perceives things and chooses to delude himself makes the focus of the story about his mental state and the lapse of unknown time, rather than just the social interactions, drinking, or strange choice of swimming in pools. Again, although there are many important themes, Neddy forces into attention a main theme of the story.

So, essentially, regardless of the varying themes and topics throughout the short stories, each story possesses a main character who brings to the readers' attention a central focus of the story. We have yet to read a story without one or two primary characters, and I'd be interested to see what that would look like.