The Swimmer describes Neddy Merril’s”swim” home. Neddy is a husband and a father, he is also adrunk.
The story encompasses about twenty years of his lifeof alcohol which ruined not only him but also hisrelationship with his family. One day after waking up with ahangover he drinks a little and decides to swim home. It isobvious he is a drunk because he is constantly searching fora drink on his swim home. Neddy was a wealthy man living in a wealthy high classneighborhood in Connecticut.
He lived with his wife andkids. He was popular and had material possessions. He wasliving the good life, maybe too good. He was well respectedand could usually be found at one of the invite only partiesin his area. Neddy awoke from with a hangover one day and decided toswim home via the Lucinda river.
The river was composed ofthe pools of people in his neighborhood. It was his versionof “pool hopping” his way home. The story seems to takeplace over the course of a day but is, in fact, a twentyyear period of his life in which alcoholism takes over hislife and causes his family to desert him. Each pool he hopssymbolizes a party he attended at that house some time overthe course of the twenty years. Some pools bring back goodmemories with the parties which accompanied them. some notso good such as the public pool which wouldn’t accept himbecause he didn’t have the proper ID tag, they didn’t want awashed up drunk in their pool anyway.
“Hey, you, youwithout the identification disk, get outta the water” calleda lifeguard. He was becoming an outcast from society,alcohol was ruining his life. As the story progressed he noticed the seasons changingand it bothered him. He was getting cold and lonely, theway an alcoholic gets when they start to realize they arelosing everything they have, especially their friends andsocial status.
At the Biswanger’s party ” the bartenderserved him but he served him rudely” a sign that he was notthe man he used to be. Usually if a bartender knows a manhe will have his drink ready for him with a smile. Not thecase anymore for Neddy, at this point he realized he waslosing something, his pride. Upon his return home he findshis house in bad condition, vines growing on it, rust on thehandle of the garage door, the lights off, and nobody home. He stands there cold and hopeless in his worn and tornbathing suit searching for answers as to where he wentwrong.
He went wrong for the past twenty years drinkinghimself into oblivion. The story of Neddy Merril is indeed a sad one. He hadeverything, wealth, popularity, material possessions, afamily which cared for him, and a passion for booze whichwouldn’t go away. His status dropped, his physicalcondition suffered and worst of all his family deserted him.
His swim home was in fact a long party which he seemed toenjoy until it all caught up to him and he was left withnothing, at the end he was as good as, if not, dead.Words/ Pages : 534 / 24
