ReaD & Digest
John Cheever’s
“The Swimmer”
Deconstructing Cheever’s use of setting to progress conflict & plot throughout the story.
Knopf DoubledayIt would storm. The stand of cumulus cloud—that city—had risen and darkened, and while he sat there he heard the percussiveness of thunder again.
Setting: the time and place of the action of a literary, dramatic, or cinematic work.
Many writers tend to forget, or neglect, the importance and character of their setting within the story. The setting can be as alive and dynamic as the main protagonist, better yet, the setting can play as a protagonist. In “The Swimmer”, John Cheever bring the suburban setting of his story to life, and as it changes, the characters change with it. The setting also allows the story to take an unusual shape throughout. I’ll explain.
Synopsis of “The Swimmer” in ONE sentence: A suburban man plots to swim, using his neighbor’s backyard pools, through the county, beginning at a friend’s pool he had partied at the previous night, and ending at his own pool where his family awaits him.
The setting of “The Swimmer” progressed dramatically throughout the short story. It began with “The day was lovely, and that he lived in a world so generously supplied with water seemed like a clemency, a beneficence.” and in only a few thousand words, ended in “The rain had cooled the air and he shivered.” Cheever uses his setting: the weather, the houses, the water, even the highway, to create and enable conflict. As the setting declines, so does his protagonist’s thoughts and feelings, even his mental health. Let’s look at the progression of the setting in the story in bullet points from the first pool, to the last.
First pool scene: sun is shining, a lovely summer’s day.
Second pool scene: sun is still shining.
Third pool scene: storm clouds begin to form. It would storm soon.
Fourth pool scene: It begins to storm. “The force of the wind had stripped a maple of its red and yellow leaves and scattered them over the grass and the water.” A sign of autumn?
Fifth pool scene: “overcast sky and cold air”
Sixth pool scene: “Leaves were falling down around him and he smelled wood smoke on the wind. Who would be burning wood at this time of year?” A sign of winter? Notice the seasonal changes! Is he losing his mind?
Final pool scene: Cold and looking up to the stars, the protagonist thinks, “What had become of the constellations of midsummer?”
Over the span of one day, the seasons have changed from summer to the dead of winter. As the protagonist traverses pool to pool, he makes himself an alcoholic drink. With each pool, with each drink, the setting of the story declines, ultimately into the bitter cold of winter. The plot of the protagonist’s alcoholism is another digestible form in itself, but Cheever uses the story’s setting to enable and display the protagonist’s loss of mental control by the progression of the seasons in the story. The setting was alive, moving and taking shape, while the protagonist was losing his mind in alcohol.
There are many more uses of the setting to move conflict in “The Swimmer”, such as for sale signs in front of friend’s houses, and I invite you to comment below on what you notice as you read the story! As writers, let’s help each other write!
