The Death of Justina (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Cheever
- First Published: 1960
- Type of Work: Short story
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: United States or Americans, Twentieth century, Dreams, Death or dying, Suburban life, Bureaucracy or bureaucrats, Tombs or graves
- Locales: Northeast (U.S.)
In “The Death of Justina” it is not merely a brush with death (as in “The Country Husband”) but death itself that serves as catalyst not only for a change in the narrator-protagonist's life but for Cheever's comic genius as well. “So help me God it gets more and more preposterous, it corresponds less and less to what I remember and what I expect as if the force of life were centrifugal and threw one further and further away from one's purest memories and ambitions”; the speaker is a version of the figure Cheever imagined in 1959—the man in a quagmire looking up at a tear...
[The entire page is 733 words long]
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