Part One. Your Essay based on the Stories of John Cheever
Write a comparative analysis of two paired stories focused on one of these themes: The grandiosity of self resulting in solipsism, warped time, and consummation in “The Swimmer” and “Torch Song”; marital symbiosis and its contradictions in “The Country Husband” and “Just Tell Me Who It Was”; egotism, Puritanism (despair disguised as self-righteous superiority), and choosing death over life in “Goodbye, My Brother” and “The Enormous Radio.”
Your 4-page literary analysis should show an ability to make thematic comparisons, find irony, paradox, symbolism, analogy, and imagery in their function to render the stories’ important themes.
In your final page, your fifth page, you will write a salient, concrete profile of someone you know who embodies the characteristics you just described in your literary comparison.
You will need a Works Cited page that cites Cheever, my blog, any interviews you might do with your subjects, and any other source material. Remember: Give your essay a catchy, salient, memorable title.
Part Two. Reading Questions
1. Why does alcohol figure so heavily in the first paragraph? One of the themes of alcoholism we will find out is that you piss people off and burn bridges until your circle of people who care about you diminishes to ZERO. Neddy Merrill violates the First Rule of Life: Always Know Your Situation. Know when a group of people likes you or not; know when your girlfriend is keeping you around until someone better comes along; know when you're eating habits are making you inflate into the Pillsbury Dough Boy; know when you're hanging out with unsavory characters who will weigh you down; know when your drinking or spending is getting you into trouble; know when a beautiful woman is asking you out that you don't have to go to the gym because if you do you'll never have an opportunity like that again. All other rules in life stem from the First Rule: Know the Situation.
Neddy Merrill doesn't know his situation. He's bankrupt, without family, without a job, without friends, without a home; however, he thinks he has all those things. He lives in alcoholic denial. He does not know his situation.
2. How in the first three paragraphs does Cheever establish that Neddy Merrill is a deluded madman? He juxtaposes youthful grandiosity (he sees himself as a “legendary figure” and the Great Swim Quest with the alcoholic dissolution that is Neddy Merrill. The story’s power comes from the disparity, or great gulf, between the character’s inflated self-perception and his woeful reality. Grandiosity is always the response to denial and moral dissolution. (to define dissolution, recall the cop who talked about evil and the tissue). Later in the story, page 607, Merrill is described as looking like a homeless man, the true condition of destitution that defines his life.
3. What universal tragedy does Neddy Merrill represent? The dissolution and private hell that results from lack of self-awareness and intractable denial. We don’t lie in our personal hell overnight. We sink there gradually or incrementally: We can kill a frog painlessly by slowly turning up the pot of water. In 2003, I realized I was fat at 257 pounds, but I was in denial for a long time. I know an alcoholic who gets drunk at parties and starts fights. His circle of friends is getting smaller and smaller and yet he doesn’t have a clue about his drinking problem. In fact, he would vehemently deny having a problem.
4. What in the third paragraph suggests that Merrill is having a bipolar episode?
5. What analogy does the story give us? A nude man swimming in water as he believes he’s returning to his “home,” his Eden. The analogy is that of a man who’s shedding his delusions and purifying himself by facing the truth of his existence. We read on page 607 that he feels compelled or “determined to complete his journey.” And portentously we see that his “return is impossible.” This is the journey of all journeys.
6. What evidence is there that the time of year is not summer as Merrill believes? See page 606. Notice the trees are stripped of their leaves. Another pool is dry, a sign that the homeowners have drained their pool after summer. Also the bathhouse is locked for the non-swim seasons. What is his delusion analogous of? He’s no longer in the summer of his life, but the autumn and autumn is death.
7. What evidence is there that Merrill’s alcoholism has played games with his memory? See page 607 top. And see page 609. Merrill seems unaware of “all his misfortunes” announced by Mrs. Halloran.
8. What is the possible naval metaphor on page 610? Separated from the human race? Helplessness of a baby? He cries for the first time like a baby on page 612. He sheds his masks and defenses and becomes the helpless baby he is.
9. How does Merrill exhibit the signs of solipsism? On page 610 Grace Biswanger refers to Merrill as a “gate crasher,” an unwelcome visitor. Merrill isn’t aware of how others perceive him. Such awareness is crucial to being sane and getting along with others. The opposite condition is solipsism, being self-centered to the point of being oblivious of how others perceive you. Later on page 611 an ex lover asks if he will ever grow up.
10. Explain the final scene on page 612.
Part Three. The Tragedy of the Swimmer: Confusing Compulsive Grandiosity with Noble Ambition
Compulsive Grandiosity:
1. inflated self-esteem or delusions of grandeur mask one's bitter defeat in life. This bitter defeat is usually the failure to achieve intimacy with one's spouse and the social community as one descends further and further into self-pity. Thus we can say grandiosity is the condition in which one has a big ego with low self-esteem.
2. Grandiosity always results in obnoxious behavior, alienating the grandiose from others and reinforcing the grandiose person's isolation.
3. While noble ambition is well planned and based on realistic goals, grandiosity is compulsive and unrealistic.
4. Grandiosity never sees the big picture, but tries to show off. Case in point: Over 70% of professional football and basketball players are bankrupt 5 years after they retire.
5. Grandiosity is often fueled by drugs or alcohol, which unleashes the grandiose person's raw low self-esteem converted into grandiose obnoxious acts.
6. While noble ambition shows the strength of the person like Bill Gates or Mark Cuban, grandiosity shows how small and pathetic the person is. In other words, grandiosity is a cry for help. Take the case of Frankita Del Mundo El Tunel Sanchez, a rich landlady who wore a body-length mink coat in the heat of summer to the bazaar. She eventually died of heat stroke. Her grandiosity, wearing a $5,000 coat, killed her.
Part Four. Class Exercise That Can be Used for Your Essay
Write about you or someone you know who confused noble ambition with grandiosity.
Part Five. Research Links
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