The Swimmer S. J Butler Analysis

Analysis and Interpretation of S.J Butler’s Short Story “The Swimmer” (939 words)

What does it take to surpass your own fears, and perhaps, gain a better self? This is one of the themes, and possibly the main theme, of the short story “The Swimmer”, written by S.J Butler in 2011, discusses. The story is about an unnamed woman, who spends most of her time in the office. From the window in said office, she can see a river, where she has always wanted to swim, however she hasn’t had the guts to do so. The story takes place over several days. However, on the first day it is very hot, which is why she finally decides to go swimming in the river. She has once before tried to go swimming in the river, but she didn’t get to actually do it, as you

Why she minds this, she doesn’t know”, in line 38 “an unnamed fear stirs in her thought […]”, and in lines 17-18 “Every day she looks out at the river, and longs to swim in it”, to being more confident and non-caring. As the story progresses, she lets loose and implicitly stops working as much as she used to. She goes from caring about whether people will look at her while she’s swimming, to not caring about the fishermen who sails by her in the morning. She also actively seeks the company of the swan, even when both she and swan are feeling ostensibly uneasy about it. The woman’s want to be with this swan, suggests that she may be lonely, and is therefore seeking the company of another living being. To her, it may not matter whether this being is human or not, as long as it will keep her company. It is implied in the story that she works a lot, and her loneliness may stem from that. The fact that she is shy, is another factor that could imply that she is lonely, since loneliness is more commonly seen with people who are shy. This all happens over the course of an unspecified number of days, but most likely no more than a couple of

These two characters both play a predominant role in the story, as they both rely on each other at one point in the story, even if they don’t know it. In woman relies on the swan in that one of the reasons she goes swimming every day is to see it, and the swan relies on the woman to save it in the end. The swan itself could symbolise the woman, and how she must save herself from her own fear. As you can read in line 80 “The swan looks down at her and she looks away, afraid to meet its eye.” she is afraid of both the swan and as stated prior in the essay the water. However, in the end of the story she ends up both swimming implicitly every day, becoming almost addicted to it, and in the end, venturing close to the swan to help