Ambiguity In John Cheever's The Swimmer

The short story “The Swimmer” by John Cheever is about a middle aged man who lives in suburbia and isn’t content with his life. The story uses a lot of showing, instead of telling, to explain who Neddy, the main character, is and how he is passing his life by, while struggling with his problems, despite not confronting his problems until the end when it’s too late and his life has already passed him by. I didn’t enjoy this story due to the amount of showing and Neddy’s lack of character, but I really liked the idea of the story and what it was trying to do. I didn’t enjoy how much the story relied on showing. I think the amount of showing in the short story was confusing and might have left too much ambiguity. One example that comes to mind is Neddy’s drinking. While he takes one drink from every pool he swims at, it doesn’t seem like he is becoming drunk or over

Neddy also thought about his four daughters during his swim home when he was thinking about the time his journey was taking, which shows us that he has a family he might care for. Cheever also tells us that Neddy has a good job, that he cares about his social status (which he finds pride in, because he has a high social status), but Cheever doesn’t really explain why Neddy becomes discontent with his life. However, later in the story Neddy comes across as unhappy with his life and we are shown that by his mistress which means he wasn’t content with his marriage. I think telling us more about what Neddy’s marriage would have helped us understand him more as a character and helped to eliminate some of the ambiguity surrounding themes. Telling in this situation, might help to give us more details about his marriage and why his family isn’t at his home when he finishes his journey through the pools. We understand that he wasn’t happy with his marriage, but we never get the reason why he was unhappy with his