Response to John Cheever's "The Swimmer"

In The Swimmer, John Cheever maintains a sense of urgency and excitement during Neddy Merrill’s journey home through the swimming pools of his neighbors, up until the very end when Merrill comes to an unfortunate discovery. This is accomplished through two primary means. First, the story never takes a moment for Neddy to rest. Second, each subsequent neighbor interacts with both Neddy and the reader on very different levels.

The perpetual motion in The Swimmer is evident throughout the story, especially when Neddy interacts with his neighbors and when he struggles to escape each new home. The interaction with each neighbor is evidenced in the scene where Enid Bunker vitually drags Neddy out of the pool. As she kisses him and drags him through the crowd of kissing women and handshaking men, Neddy’s anxiousness peeks through. The scene could easily be converted into a short film due to moments like this, along with some neat scenery associated with the changing of the season. The excitement continues as soon as he breaks free and jogs along the garden path. Each interaction has a moment like the one with Enid Bunker—Neddy is glad at first to see his friends, but quickly becomes impatient or frightened and keeps moving. This cyclic building and releasing of tension and “awkward moments” keeps the reader engaged, despite the confusion.

The contrasting interpretations of Neddy’s interactions with his neighbors by Neddy and by the reader lead to an interesting mix of humor, confusion, and sympathy for the strange fate of Neddy. Even the inattentive reader (like myself) begins to pick up on hints that Neddy has been the victim of an unpleasant fate when he arrives at the Halloran household. The elderly (and nudist) Mrs. Halloran kindly welcomes Neddy, but confesses her sympathy over the loss of his house and about the fate of his children. Neddy is confused at this idea, insisting that his girls are at home and that the house is fine. There are seeds before this that something is wrong, but this really puts the nail in the coffin. Poor Neddy has lost his mind. All the same, Cheever’s presentation of Neddy’s excitement for his journey makes it hard not to like Neddy and hope that he really is just on a journey home.

In summary, Cheever generates a remarkable response in his reader by keeping the story moving with an exciting, though not entirely realistic, story line while grounding the story in the sad tale of Neddy Merrill.