S. J Butler The Swimmer Analysis

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The Swimmer By S.J. Butler Pure beauty causes a wide variety of feelings. In the human mind it is often expressed with fear, amazement, longing and might even love. The short story “The Swimmer (2011)” by S.J. Butler deals with fear and amazement. The reader is introduced to these through an unnamed protagonist. In this analysis I will analyze the narration, the evolvement of the protagonist, the setting of the story and to finish of, I will come op with and conclusion and identify the theme. The omnipotent 3rd person narrator in the short story makes it easy for the reader to step into written world of the story. It is especially evident in two situations. No. 1: Just as she is about to jump in to the river, in which she has seen “great branches, dead sheep” sweep past. No. 2: When she untangles the swan from the fishing line . In both cases the reader is …show more content…

The swan is stuck in the fishing line the same way the protagonist is stuck at her desk job. An the same way life moves on for her, the river flows for the swan and they both have to keep following it. It seems they are closely linked, and so the development of the narrator takes form. At first she is shy and modest towards because she feels the swans is su-perior to her and she feels humiliated by the fact that people can see her swimming in the riv-er. She as afraid of the current, the bugs on the ground and last and foremost she is afraid of the uncontrolled wilderness of the river she cannot control it, just life itself. In the end it is clear that the lake does not belong to the swan. Our protagonist is no longer inferior to the swan. When the swan’s life depended on her, she had to “step” (swim) in, and thus going against her own words (“It remains untouched by her presence” ). The equality between the two of them is strongly market as the warm blood from the swan wound streams around

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