Lea Shontay Wilks
Instructor Lisa Adams
Lit 101 Introduction to Literature (33203.201330)
26 April 2014
An Analysis of "The Swimmer" by John Cheever
Most stories can have an emotional impact on people, but once in a while certain stories can take the reader to the edge of reality. The Swimmer is a fascinating story with primary use of a setting and amazing characters that engages readers and can move them to experience life in an unfathomable way. Cheever was born May 27, 1912, in Quincy, Massachusetts, to Frederick Lincoln Cheever and Mary Liley Cheever. His father owned a shoe factory until it was lost in the Great Depression of the 1930s. His mother, an English-woman who emigrated with her parents, supported her husband and their two sons with the profits from a gift shop she operated. Cheever writing can be classified in the literary movement known as Realism.
The realism movement took place in the 19th century. Based on normal everyday events realism depicts ordinary people dealing with society and its forces on living. Realistic writing is characterized with everyday events, social controversy, and protagonist/antagonist interactions. There is often and ironic undertone to Realism, as is evident in “The Swimmer”. All of the characteristics of the Realism movement mentioned are active in this story. An example of Realism in “The Swimmer” Neddy Merrill, sat by the green water, with one hand in it and the other hand around a glass of gin. He was a slender man who seemed to have the striking slenderness of youth and while he was far from young he had slid down the banister that morning and given the bronze backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack, as he jogged toward the smell of coffee in his dining room. This brings out the swimmer’s quality of Realism because it is a display of how some people would start their day in our society.
Cheever does a