Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet (essay date 1992)
SOURCE: “Cheever's Dark Knight of the Soul: The Failed Quest of Neddy Merrill,” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 29, No. 3, Summer, 1992, pp. 347-52.
[In the following essay, Blythe and Sweet explore Cheever's use of Grail mythology in the characters, events, and settings of “The Swimmer,” and contrast Neddy Merrill, the selfish hero, with the traditional selfless Grail hero.]
Although critics, including ourselves, have noted many minor patterns throughout “The Swimmer” such as the color...
Source: Short Story Criticism, ©2006 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 2417 words.)
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