The Swimmer Alcoholism

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In the short story The Swimmer written by John Cheever, alcohol plays a prominent role in determining plot movement, as it defines the protagonist Neddy. Neddy is an alcoholic who does not necessarily see his addiction. As the readers, we do not get the entire picture of Neddy’s life right off the bat. There is a distortion of time, which we are kept from, as we do not know how much time actually passes throughout the course of the story. We are not aware that while Neddy is ‘swimming’ over what we think is a course of a day, is actually years. Alcohol is is used as a plot mechanism as it keeps us synced with what is going on in Neddy’s life, and it leads Neddy to the harsh ending of the story where he is left with nothing.
Throughout …show more content…
Throughout the course of the story, Neddy is swimming and drinking. The alcohol is distorting time and aiding to his memory failure. Eventually, Neddy begins to feel the effects of his alcoholism. He feels tired and cold, and he notices himself losing weight. The people he was once close with seem to have drifted away, and he feels alienated. The only thing that seems to be constant is the fact that he wants a drink. “It was probably the first time in his adult life that he had ever cried, certainly the first time in his life that he had ever felt so miserable, cold, tired, and bewildered. He could not understand the rudeness of the caterer’s barkeep or the rudeness of a mistress who had come to him on her knees and showered his trousers with tears.” It is clear that alcohol is the reason for this emotional state Neddy is in. he would block out all the bad memories and drink to numb the pain, resulting in his forgetting a lot from his last recent years. When he steps into his house, he realizes that the house is empty and is hit with reality. The alcohol explains why he feels the way he does, and is in fact the reason he feels that way. Alcohol brings us to the conclusion of the
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