While I was able to see some sort of storyline within “Good Country People,” I was, at first, completely baffled by “The Swimmer.” It is easily the strangest short story I have read in a long time. Both stories are very vague in meaning and they both have diverse characters. Structurally, it is clear that both O’Connor and Cheever were striving for the obscure.
“The Swimmer” is very generic in the sense that its characters while all different, are all of a lazy sort of upper class. They all appear to be extremely stereotypical of snooty rich people. The exception is obviously Ned Merrill, who is both drunk and slightly loopy throughout the entire story. He has no perception of anything going on around him and seems immune to emotion or reality. His goal of swimming across the county in swimming pools is absurd to the reader, and at the end, one is left confused as he finds his house empty. Previously, someone mentioned that his house had been sold, but nothing is really confirmed or verified by the author and the reader is left wondering.
Likewise, “Good Country People” was very strange and slightly disturbing. We see this thirty some year old woman who lives a mundane and frustrating life. She changes her name, which is awkward, from Joy to Hulga, and resents her mother but has no method of escape since she is handicapped. She seems to find a “salvation” if you will in the bible salesman, whose true name is never known, but we soon discover that all he wants from her is her leg. Now read that last sentence again and tell me with a straight face that this story isn’t bizarre.
In both stories, I think the author’s intent was to portray a sense of indifference to what is actually going on. In “The Swimmer,” we see that time is passing Ned by and he doesn’t even realize it. First he starts by describing his house and daughters but by the end he comes home to a deserted house. Also, he has no perception of time, which is evidenced a few times when he says something like, “last year, or was it the year before that.”
In “Good Country People,” we see Joy /Hulga’s indifference in that she will not live her life. She is “confined” to this house and the one time she tries to get out and do something, she loses her leg. This, however, is a result of her own naiveté, and gives the idea that no matter how much education you have or how many degrees, it won’t make you wise to the world. Also, the fact that she changes her name portrays that she is trying to deny who she is as a person and who her family is. She learns the hard way to appreciate what she has before its too late, which is a message strongly emphasized by Cheever as well.
3 comments:
I do agree with you, Sam about how this is one of the strangest stories I've ever read haha but that's why it is so interesting! Obscure is a word with so many interpretations. If you means obscure in the sense of avoid of traditional techniques, I agree. But I don't think it's strange just to fuck with your head, I think it's to make you feel a certain way for a reason especially in "The Swimmer." Neddy seems to be in some way, either through booze or mental repression, "loopy" as you put it and the dizziness of the story puts you in that disoriented role as a way of seeing where Ned is coming from, maybe? Your confused? Well, so is he. "Immune to emotion" is an excellent way of describing his mindset. He seems to be almost catatonic or a drone as how he lived most of his life. The way he doesn't remember or represses things kind of makes you question whether or not this is even happening, ya know? It almost seems like a dream.
I really like the point you made about appreciating what you have before it's too late; I never saw that in either of the stories (I guess I was distracted by wondering why the guy wanted a leg and what did he do with it?)
I agree very much on your description of each character, it fits them well. I do believe like you said that Hulga/Joy changed her name inorder to persay "get away" from her family, or mother. Truthfully I was totally confused on where each of these stories ended, because they leave you just hanging, but your interpretation of the end that you must appreciate what you have before it's too late fits them very well. Hulga's life fell appart after he took her leg, and the Neddy's life was a mistery of what happened at the end, not sure if it was his drunken imagination, or just the cluelessness of life in general.
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