Quest motif in John Cheever’s short story ‘The Swimmer’ Essay

The finale of some(prenominal) journey is a grave credit of some kind literally, the realization of adepts goal, metaphorically frequently a consciousness of ones reality. For an individual on a mission, a quest the arrival at the verity is the final destination. The motif of quest has been use diversely in literature from the essay for the Holy Grail to the leg last of the luxurious Fleece. John Cheever uses the quest motif in his short story The Swimmer to chip in the unusual travails of his narcissistic zep, Neddy through the polar pools of society work he arrives at the emptiness of his throw life, the shut-down panels of his home.The transition from the total to experience is paralleled through the quest motif. At the beginning of the short story, Neddy is the appargonntly youthful, chimerical quester compass forth on his own adventure to swim the county, across a stretch of private and habitual pools to reach his home in dope Park, eight miles to the south , where his four beautiful daughters would prevail had their lunch and might be acting tennis. (Cheever, The Swimmer) As the quest continues, there are inevitable signs of passing time (not paralleled by the physical time of Neddys eight-miles move journey), subtle indications of the fraying of the self-deception Neddy indulges in, the wearisome unmask of the unpleasant truths of his life and the final epiphanic approach at the sight of his empty locked mark in the enfolding tinctureness of the frozen evening. Cheever ironically stands the traditional quest on its head. The legendary hero leaves his home and hearth, setting forth on a avenue of trials, overcoming hurdles, and finally achieves success in the practice of a treasure.As defined by Neela Mookerjee in her essay, The Long Winding Road, the hero begins his quest and starts to encounter difficulties that lie along the way. One such meeting is with the Other. The Other, ofttimes described as the heros alter-ego or t he heros dark side, reflects the personality traits which the hero does not hope to acknowledge as being pitch in himself. Because he finds this send off so repugnant, the hero often tries to deny any commonality in the midst of himself and the Other.Neddy Merrill, the legendary figure (Cheever, The Swimmer) is the wealthy elite socialite who starts the sunny mean solar day breathing deeply, stertorously as if he could gulp into his lungs the components of that moment, the heat of the sun, the intenseness of his pleasure. (Cheever, The Swimmer) In his own mind, he prints his own trail of pools, the swimmer in his own human beings till the self-pretense is stripped away from the eyes of the booster station as well as the readers liquid along with the narrative as he confronts his Other reality.Often described as an anglophile , John Cheever depicts the social surround of Merrill in its suburbanite languid pace the Grahams, the Hammers, the Lears, the Howlands, and the Cros scups, then the Bunkers, the Levys, the Welchers, and the public pool in Lancaster. hence there were the Hallorans, the Sachses, the Biswangers, Shirley Adams, the Gilmartins, and the Clydes. Neddy is portrayed as the pilgrim seeking an unexplored route to the known end with the belief that friends would line the banks of the Lucinda River.(Cheever) The upper folk suburbanite society depicted is a world of self-indulgence a world where one could lounge about in bare-ass pleasure, an everlasting party with the same faces, rounds of drinks and turn up hangovers, and even the same serving bartenders. From the satiate of drinks/hangovers in the opening paragraph to the communistic label as a score of reformist zeal, even the contrast between the private haven of ones own pool vis-a-vis the unsporting commonness of the public pool Merrills sort is painted visually for the reader.The social behavior towards Neddy subtly changes from the courteous pleasing of Mrs. Grahams to t he patronizing sympathy of Mrs. Halloran, to the rude chemical reaction of the Biswangers at his intrusive presence in their noisy party. Neddy tries to integrates himself into the texture of the social class he once belonged to, but as the text develops, he is portrayed as an invasive element, an opportunist for free drinks and beg loans. The color of the quest thickens, darkens as the slow realization of the erstwhile insider being the unwished-for outsider hits home.