Fine Line

_{The first paragraph if John Cheever’s “The Swimmer”, shows suburban} couples nonchalantly talking about how they all “drank too much” last night, and although, this is a potential problem due to the lack of comfortability around the physical effects of the hangovers, a bigger problem would be to not have a hangover, as that would be going against the grain.   There exists an unspoken rule that they are all in this together, this suburban world in the 1960’s. This group of hungover suburbanites sets the stage for what turns out to be a meditation on what happens to a person existing outside the acceptable norm, and although one can get away with a certain amount of excentric behaviors, once the fatal mistake of losing your money unfolds, you belong nowhere.  Any graces that were extended previously are no longer offered.

 This world of Neddie’s is one where sincerity is acted out, but not true, at least in the beginning, when Neddie and his wife are at a party. At this point, his family is intact. But then something changes, and Neddie believes himself to be an explorer on an adventure. This first scene in the summer months represents the part of his life that he spends the rest of the story trying to hold onto. After that initial party, his wife, Lucinda is no longer in the scenes with him, to find out later that she has left him and his daughters are no longer in his life. but as time progresses, Neddie decides to swim the length of all the pools in his neighborhood, making a river into them carrying him home.

For Neddie, the swimming home takes place one day, but it soon becomes clear that each pool he enters are flashes of time. Each pool is a place where his personality and how he treated people unfolds. It is also a quest that he is obsessed with finishing at all costs. This obsession with swimming every pool home does not break the connection of the Lucinda River, reveals Neddie’s childlike rigidity. He stops at each pool taking what he wants. A swim and a drink. After taking shelter in Levy’s gazebo because of the storm he thinks is exciting, he moves on. The excitement over the storm shows Neddie’s childlike excitement over risk and changes from the norm. A thunderstorm belongs in the summer, so within that framework, he is happy with the change, but when he moves on and notices the leaves beginning to change (the passing of time), he ignores it. When he finds the Welchers pool drained and them not home, this is not pleasant for him because if this is summer why is the pool drained, and the house boarded up? This doesn’t happen in Summer, but Neddie expresses, “disciplined in the repression of unpleasant facts,” showing that he refuses to look at the reality of his life.

Neddie is a selfish character, who reflects the nature of alcoholism. He hides from reality and minimizes his behavior by calling himself an explorer. He cannot face his reality of getting older and losing his success. By the time he does make it home, he finds his house uninhabited and unkempt, revealing his delusion that he could continue behaving like a selfish child in a grown-up world. In the end, Neddie’s loss of money does him in. All extensions of grace came from his charm that no longer exists, and his success, which is gone. His wife and daughters could give him some level of acceptance, but they are gone too, leaving him empty and broken at the door of his home.

This story shows that if one wants to forge his own path there is a fine line between charming and pathetic. All roads lead to money.

            This story reflects a society where men, especially affluent men, live a life that is charmed, where people will look away as long as he doesn’t go too far. If a man can earn money, stay fit, and look good, then infidelity and selfish and childish behaviors will be overlooked. When a man lives a life receiving that message, his mind cannot comprehend the change that happens when you go from success to failure, because he never learned that line.