Tuesday, September 8, 2015
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.
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Lily, I completely agree that The Swimmer represents the shallowness of the upperclass society. When you were reading the story did you think that Ned was actually swimming in all these pools? I read it less literally and assumed that it was a sort of metaphor for his life. He starts out his journey through life happy and on top of the world, but as time goes on and he loses his family and money, he becomes delusional. I thought him swimming just represented this.
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