Upon first being introduced to Neddy Merrill, a sense of wariness descends upon the reader. Why would this seemingly invincible man, glowing with the vitality usually accompanying one much younger than he, attempt to journey home through a cluster of neighboring swimming pools? The answer can be found by a slight stretch of the imagination. Cheever has left room for several inferences as far as Ned’s background goes. It’s understood that Ned apparently is basking in the picturesque, 1950’s, New England lifestyle complete with a beautiful wife, four

A few swimming pools later, time is obviously progressing much faster than Ned is allotting to. “We’ve been terribly sorry to hear about all your misfortunes, Ned. We heard you sold the house and that your poor children…” Mrs. Halloran sympathizes. “My misfortunes? I don’t know what you mean. I don’t recall having sold the house, and the girls are at home,” Ned interrupts. Neddy Merrill is swimming, indeed, but not so much in the chlorinated pools as he’s adrift in the waters of his stubborn insubordination. Rather than admit that something has gone terribly amiss with his life, he obstinately continues on his journey and persists in his drinking. The next warning that denial is overtaking Ned’s existence occurs when he finds he has no recollection of a friend’s operation nearly three years earlier. He deliberates over the facts. “Had his gift for concealing painful facts let him forget that he had sold his house, that his children were in trouble, and that his friend has been ill?” A suggestion that Ned has slipped on the social ladder crops up when someone whom he considers to be a few steps lower, so to speak, treats him very rudely. He overhears the condescending woman say, “They went for broke overnight- nothing but income- an

Some topics in this essay:
Neddy Merrill, River Egypt, Enid Bunker, sold house, human mind, Lucinda River, swimming pools, denial isn’t river, isn’t river, financial situation, denial isn’t, river egypt, neddy merrill, “the swimmer”,