Title: TO BUILD A FIRE

Author: Jack London

Setting:

The story is set in the Klondike in the Yukon Territory of Canada, the site of a gold rush in the late nineteenth century. Gold was discovered in the area in 1896, and, by 1899, thousands of prospectors had flooded the region. The Klondike is in upper northwest Canada, near the Alaskan border at about the same latitude as lower Siberia, and the area is intensely cold in the winter with temperatures regularly reaching fifty degrees below zero. One prospector mentioned in a letter that his thermometer had reached sixty-five degrees below zero, which was the lowest the thermometer would go.

Characters:

The manThe man in "To Build a Fire" is purposely not given a name, as the

deterministic environment is more important than his free will and individuality. His goal at the start of the story is to reach the camp to meet "the boys," presumably to prospect for gold. The man's greatest deficiency, leading to his death, is his inability to think about the future consequences of present actions or facts; at the beginning of the story, London describes how the extreme cold does not make the man meditate upon mortality. More pertinently, the man does not realize that building a fire under a spruce tree may be dangerous. In all his actions, the man exercises only intellectuality--he thinks about the temperature in terms of degrees Fahrenheit, for instance, a scientific indicator. He never uses instinct, which would inform him without thinking that certain actions are dangerous. The dog, conversely, instinctively understands the danger of the cold without knowing what a thermometer is. Ultimately, the man's lack of free will exonerates him from any deep responsibility for the accidents he has, which is why London writes that the second accident was his "own fault or, rather, his mistake." A "fault" implies full responsibility, whereas a "mistake" suggests an isolated incident out of one's control.

The dogThe dog represents pure instinct, a trait necessary for survival in the

harsh Yukon. Unlike the man, who requires the products of intellectual civilization--warm clothing, matches, maps, thermometers--the dog simply uses its own natural advantages--fur, a keen sense of smell. Perhaps more importantly, the dog has an instinctive understanding of the cold. It knows that such conditions are dangerous and unsuitable for traveling; when its feet get wet, it instinctively bites at the ice that forms between its toes. This sense of instinct preserves the dog as opposed to the man--it even knows instinctively when the man is attempting to kill it (to warm his hands in its carcass). Although the dog cannot create a fire for itself, or even hunt down

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food in the wild so well, its instinct keeps it alive and allows it to find the nearby camp of men--"the other food-providers and fire-providers."

The old-timerThe man remembers the advice of an old-timer from Sulphur Creek

who warned him against traveling alone in the Yukon when the temperature is lower than fifty degrees below. The man first scoffs at this advice when he adeptly handles his first accident, but later understands the wisdom in the old-timer's caution: man is not instinctively fit for the harsh, indifferent environment of the Yukon.

The boysThe man is trying to meet "the boys" by six o'clock at night.

Presumably, they are prospecting for gold. Though they never appear in the story, the boys (and the man) are examples of the lower-class characters naturalism turned its attention to; only men without much to lose would risk their lives in the harsh Yukon.

Major Themes:

DeterminismThe movement of naturalism was greatly influenced by the 19th-

century ideas of Social Darwinism, which was in turn influenced by Charles Darwin's theories on evolution. Social Darwinism applied to the human environment the evolutionary concept that natural environments alter an organism's biological makeup over time through natural selection. Social Darwinists and naturalists cited this as proof that organisms, including humans, do not have free will, but are shaped, or determined, by their environment and biology. Naturalists argued that the deterministic world is based on a series of links, each of which causes the next (for more on these causal links, see Causal links and processes, below). In "To Build a Fire," London repeatedly shows how the man does not have free will and how nature has already mapped out his fate. Indeed, both times the man has an accident, London states "it happened," as if "it" were an inevitability of nature and that the man had played no role in "it." The most important feature of this deterministic philosophy is in the amorality and lack of responsibility attached to an individual's actions (see Amorality and responsibility, below).

Amorality and responsibility

A curious revision occurs when London writes that the man's second accident with the snow was his "own fault or, rather, his mistake." While both are damning words, "fault" is much more serious; it implies an underlying moral responsibility and role in future consequences, while "mistake" suggests an isolated incident outside of one's control. Likewise, the man believes his first accident is bad "luck," another word that connotes lack of free will. "Accident," too, insinuates an unforeseen or unanticipated event out of one's power.

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If naturalism maintains that an individual has no free will (see Determinism, above), as London's careful phrasing suggests, then it is logical that the individual should not bear responsibility for his actions: if humans are not even in control of our own actions, why should we take responsibility for them?

The answer is that one should take responsibility for one's actions if one can anticipate potential consequences. Since the naturalistic world is based on causal links (see Causal links and processes, below), it should be possible, to an extent, to predict the consequences of our actions. The man could not have anticipated his falling through the snow, and therefore it is merely bad "luck." However, he should have anticipated that his other action--building a fire under a spruce tree--could carry potentially significant consequences: the snuffing out of the fire. Only in this anticipatory sense is he somewhat responsible. That London revises his judgment from "fault" to "mistake" suggests the gray area in the man's responsibility; while he should have anticipated the results of his actions, and thus be held liable, he did not, so he cannot be held liable.

Causal links and processes

"To Build a Fire" is, among other things, a virtual instruction manual on how to build a fire. It details specifically how one goes about gathering twigs and grasses, assembling them, lighting them, and keeping the fire going. The story, like many naturalist works, is obsessed with processes. These processes can be viewed as causal links--each event causes the next one. Causality is another preoccupation of naturalism, which grounds itself in the philosophy of determinism (see Determinism, above).

While the man in the story is adept with physical processes, he cannot make associative mental leaps and project causal links in his mind. London tells us this from the start, describing how the extreme cold does not make him meditate in successively larger circles on man's mortality. He has also ignored advice about avoiding the cold, not thinking ahead to what might happen in such harsh conditions. This deficit hurts him most when he builds the fire under the spruce tree; he does not think ahead that he might capsize the tree's load of snow and snuff out the fire. Only by the end of the story, when he is near death, does he mentally process causal links, thinking about his own death and how others might come across his body. The ability to process these mental causal links is the only way one can be held responsible for his actions in naturalism (see Amorality and responsibility, above). Since the man does not make these mental links, he is not fully responsible for the accidents that befall him.

Instinct over intellectualismThough the man is hardly an "intellectual," he exercises intellectual

properties more than instinctive ones. He uses complicated tools (matches) to build a fire; he understand how cold it is through temperature readings; he identifies where he is (Henderson Creek, the Yukon) through language on a map. The dog, on the other hand, is pure instinct. It remains warm through its fur coat or by burrowing into the snow; it has an innate understanding of the

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cold and its dangers; it could not point out its location on a map, but it knows by scent where to find the nearby camp with men. In the Yukon, instinct is far superior to intellect. The man's intellect backfires on him. His ability to light the matches with his numb fingers suffers in the extreme cold, and both his fingers and the matches are examples of man's naturally selected advantage of intellect: man has fingers to operate tools, and his larger, more complex brain allows him to create such tools. The dog is much wiser, aware that the cold is too dangerous for them; it even knows when the man is trying to deceive it somehow (he wants to kill it and bury his hands in its warm carcass). Accordingly, only the dog survives, and though it may not be able to take care of itself fully, it instinctively knows to go to "the other food-providers and fire-providers" in the nearby camp.

Indifferent environment and survivalNaturalism not only maintains that the environment is deterministic,

but indifferent. The environment does nothing to help its inhabitants; in fact, it is coldly indifferent to their existence and struggle. In "To Build a Fire," the Yukon would be bitterly cold without the man, as well, and it does not cease when the man struggles to stay alive. This indifference makes survival itself a critical goal for naturalist characters. As the story goes on, the man changes his goal from reaching the camp, to warding off frostbite, to merely staying alive. Naturalism thus elicits profound conflicts, man versus nature being one of them.

The objective power of numbers and factsNaturalism maintains that the world can be understood only through

scientific, objective knowledge. In "To Build a Fire," the reader receives a number of these hard facts. For instance, temperatures lower than negative fifty degrees Fahrenheit demarcate the danger zone of traveling alone. London tells us the exact amount of matches the man lights at once (seventy). Moreover, the man is preoccupied with the distance to the camp and the time he will reach it. These hard facts should arm the man with enough information to assess competently the deterministic environment, but he fails to do so before he is in mortal danger.

Naturalistic subject matter and languageNaturalist fiction writers devised new techniques and subject matters

to convey their ideas. Generally, they focused more on narrative rather than character. "To Build a Fire" has a nearly nonstop narrative drive, and we only occasionally enter into the mind of the man--who does not even have a name in the story, indicating how little London is concerned with him as a unique person. Naturalists often used sparer, harder language to complement their plot-driven stories; this tendency can be seen as a verbal corollary to naturalism's preoccupation with objectivity (see The objective power of numbers and facts, above). Finally, naturalism usually turned its attention to the often-ignored lower classes. The man in the story is a lower- to middle-class drifter trying to strike it rich; no one with any wealth would risk his life in such brutal conditions.

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Summary:

A man turns off from the main trail in the Yukon (in Alaska) on an extremely cold, gray morning. He surveys the icy, snowy tundra. The cold does not faze the man, a newcomer to the Yukon, since he rarely translates hard facts, such as the extreme cold, into more significant ideas, such as man's frailty and mortality. He spits, and his saliva freezes in mid-air, an indication that is colder than fifty degrees below zero. He shrugs it off; he is going to meet "the boys" by six o'clock at the old claim near Henderson Fork. He has taken an alternate route to examine the possibility of getting out logs in the spring from the islands in the Yukon. He feels his lunch of biscuits inside his jacket, warming against his skin.

The man walks through the thick snow, his unprotected cheekbones and nose feeling numb. A husky wolf-dog follows him, instinctively depressed by and apprehensive of the cold. Every warm breath the man exhales increases the ice deposit on his beard. He passes over more terrain to the frozen bed of a stream, ten miles from his destination, where he plans to eat lunch. The faintness of the last sled-trail in the snow indicates no one has been by in a month, but the man pays it no mind; still, he occasionally thinks that it is very cold, and automatically and unsuccessfully rubs his cheekbones and nose to warm them. He realizes his cheeks will "frost," and wishes he had prepared for this, but decides that frosted cheeks are only painful and not very serious.

Though the man does not spend much time thinking, he is observant of the curves and the possibility of dangerous springs in the creek as he wends along it. If he crashed through one, he could potentially get wet up to his waist, and even wet feet on such a cold day would be extremely dangerous. As he continues, he avoids several springs. At one point, suspecting a spring, he pushes the reluctant dog forward to investigate. The dog’s feet get wet, and it instinctively licks and bites at the ice that forms between its toes. The man helps the dog, briefly removing his mitten in the numbing cold.

A little after noon, the man takes out his lunch. His frozen beard prevents his biting into it, and his fingers and toes are numb, so he decides to build a fire. He thinks about the man from Sulphur Creek who gave him advice about the cold; he scoffed at it at the time. He takes out matches, gathers twigs, and starts a fire. He thaws his face and eats his biscuits. The dog warms itself near the fire. After, the man continues up a fork of the creek. The dog wants to remain with the fire or at least burrow in the snow, but since there is no "keen intimacy" between the two, the dog does not try to warn the man for his own sake; it is concerned only with its own well-being. Still, it follows the man.

Analysis:

"To Build a Fire" is the quintessential naturalist short story. Naturalism was a movement in literature developed largely by Emile Zola, Theodore

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Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, and Jack London in the late 19th-century. Its major themes (which will all be explained and explored in greater depth here) are determinism over free will; the indifference of the environment; survival; absence of moral judgment; instinct over intellectualism; a fascination with processes; the emphasis of narrative over character; depiction of characters in the lower classes; and more realistic language befitting such characters and settings.

"To Build a Fire" reveals much about itself and its naturalist origins in its title. "To Build a Fire" sounds almost like an instruction manual, and the story does, indeed, teach the reader how to perform various acts, such as building fires, avoiding dangerous springs, and navigating a creek. As in Herman Melville's Moby Dick (not considered a naturalist novel, but it shares many of the same concerns), where the reader learns all about whale hunting, the reader leaves the story with a sense of the processes at work in its world. We see other processes in effect, too, such as the layers of snow and ice that have built up in the Yukon, or the ice that accumulates on the man's beard.

The title also implies the need for survival. London might have (unwisely) given his story the unpleasant title "To Survive, You Need To Build a Fire." Naturalism is interested in the deep conflicts that bring out the brute instincts of man. London's story provides one of the oldest conflicts in literature and life: man versus nature. The man is at constant risk of freezing in the brutal cold, and soon mere survival, rather than the prospect of finding gold, will become his preoccupation.

The man is clearly not an experienced Yukon adventurer. He ignores all the facts that indicate danger--he underestimates the cold, he ignores the absence of travelers in the last month, he de-emphasizes his soon-to-be-frostbitten cheekbones. Again, processes are important: he does not make any mental processes, taking facts and assigning them increasing significance. While this may seem at first like an intellectual deficit, what the man truly lacks is instinct--the unconscious understanding of what the various facts mean.

The dog, on the other hand, is pure instinct. While it cannot intellectualize the cold as the man can, assigning numerical values to the temperature, it has "inherited knowledge" about the cold. Without thinking, the dog knows the cold is dangerous, knows the spring is risky, knows to bite at the ice that forms between its toes, and even knows not to get too close to the fire for fear of singeing itself.

While the main conflict is man versus nature, it would be inaccurate to say that nature actively assaults the man. Nature does not go out of its way to hurt the man; it would be just as cold without the man's presence, as well. Rather, the environment is indifferent to the man, as it frequently is in naturalist literature. The bitter environment does not aid him in any way, and it will not notice if he perishes. In the same way, the dog does not care about the man, only about itself.

Even London does not seem to care about the man too much--or, more precisely, he does not make any overt moral judgments about the man. He

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merely conveys the objective facts, pessimistic though they may be about the man. For instance, in describing the man's inability to make mental leaps, London only states "That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head." London never denounces outright the man's foolhardiness; his most aggressive comment, "The trouble with him was that he was without imagination," is only a suggestion that the man will encounter trouble because of this deficit.

Likewise, London maintains an air of neutrality with his prose, objective and reportorial. He focuses mostly on the narrative and little on the man's interior world and history--indeed, we never even know the man's (or the dog's) name. He is less an individual and more a representative of all humanity, especially humanity up against nature. Also in keeping with the naturalist tradition, the man is obviously not a member of the upper class. Like "the boys," he hopes to strike it rich by prospecting for gold, as did many during the Yukon Gold Rush in the late 19th-century, or even by selling logs.

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Title: THE USE OF FORCE

Author: William Carlos Williams

Setting: The story was set in a poor household in the United States, early in the twentieth century.

Characters:

The doctor Mathilda Olson Mrs. Olson Mr. Olson

Major Themes:

Fallibility of human behaviorWhen a doctor comes in conflict with a little girl in a situation in which

battle of wills occurs over a medical evaluation, the results may be that the doctor loses control of his emotions, abandoning his bedside manner and professionalism in his quest to diagnose the child, traumatizing her in the process and exposing the fallibility of doctors and their vulnerability to ego driven behavior.

Power and submissionThe story evokes with great immediacy, a number of important issues

about doctoring: the predicament of having quickly to asses a medical /social situation in an unfamiliar, even hostile environment; his concern o do the right thing medically; the anxiety of the sick child’s parents; the power that the doctor wields;  the dark side of human nature which allow such power to surface in unsavoury ways and which the professional, like any rational person, has under most circumstances learned to control.

Summary: 

A physician is summoned to make a house call on a family with whom he has had no prior contact. He quickly sizes up the situation: the household is poor but clean; the patient is a female child whose parents are nervously concerned, dependent on, yet distrustful of the doctor. The child's beauty and penetrating stare make an immediate impression on him.

Concerned that diphtheria may be the cause of illness, he uses his customary professional manner to determine whether or not the child has a sore throat. But the child will have none of it and "clawed instinctively for my eyes." The attempt at an examination rapidly escalates into a physical "battle" as the physician, convinced that it is crucial to see the child's throat

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"and feeling that I must get a diagnosis now or never," becomes ever more enraged and forceful while the girl continues to resist with all her strength, and the parents are in an agony of fear for her health and embarrassment over her behavior.

This is no longer a professional encounter. The doctor admits at the beginning of the struggle to having "fallen in love with the savage brat" and recognizes that he is behaving irrationally. The closing sequence could as easily be depicting a rape as a forced throat examination.

Analysis:

The use of force by Carlos Williams is an emotional and interesting short story. If you had time to read the book and also read the biography of Carlos Williams, you might tend to believe that the narrator of the short story is Carlos Williams himself since Carlos is a doctor himself, but the reality is that it is a doctor who is the actual narrator. This short story which was published in the year nineteen thirty eight brings out the story of two characters engaged in heated confrontation. Through the story we are able to see the extent which it can all go as a result of intertwining of personal and social roles. 

By reading the book it comes out clearly that the man’s behavior directed towards the girl and the young patient brings out the difficult that people normally have in separating standards and emotions. The doctor, who is the main character in the story, and the patient who is a young girl, both depict a troublesome encounter which is subject to discussion. Just like in many other stories the characters actions reflect the real situations which do occur in life. In this short story there is a major concern that is seen which is, if professionalism of the doctor for example should supersede the personal reasoning while executing his services. The author of this short story employs the doctor as a main character who he uses to bring out the dilemma which a rises whenever an issue is confronted. This is depicted in the story when the doctor is attached to the patient. This indicates that, the doctor is unable to cope with people on a professional level. 

When there is a serious diphtheria epidemic, which leads the doctor to become very cautious in his work and as a result of the epidemic he develops no shame or guilt especially when he goes forth and indulges in very violent maneuvers, can lead a reader to believing that, the doctor tends to find pleasure in the pain of the patients. A reader can also start to interpret the use of force to be a positive aspect but this is just in the story. By exhibiting inappropriate maneuvers to save the young patient, the doctor destroys the reputation of his career but he saves life. 

Symbolism in the story is brought out through the use of characters which are used by the author to illustrate different aspects and situations in

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life. The doctor in the story also symbolizes difficult. The doctor finds it hard to differentiate between two tasks. The young girl, who is a patient in the story, depicts the aspect of conflict between her role as a patient and her role as an individual in fact she is the main reason for the turmoil that unfolds in the short story because she isn’t willing to cooperate. This is seen in the way she seriously shows rebellion in the story; her parents on the other hand hold no strong restraints from controlling the girl’s behavior which makes the girl to have the space and time to even increasingly behave badly.

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Title: THE SWIMMER

Author: John Cheever

Characters:

Neddy Merrill: The title character. He is a slender, middle-aged man who lives in a posh New York City suburb. He is a heavy drinker who has an affair with a woman in his neighborhood. The reader discovers at the end of the story that his wife and four daughters have left him. 

Lucinda Merrill: Wife of Neddy Merrill.

The Four Merrill Daughters

Helen Westerhazy: Friend of Neddy Merrill, who begins his swim at her pool.

Donald Westerhazy: Husband of Helen Westerhazy.

Mrs. Graham: Neighbor who gives Neddy a drink while he swims her pool.

Mrs. Graham's Guests From Connecticut

Mrs. Hammer: Woman who tends roses while Neddy swims her pool.

The Lears: Husband and wife who sit in their living room as Neddy swims by.

The Howlands, the Crosscups: Residents who are away while Neddy swims their pools.

Enid Bunker: Neighbor who welcomes Neddy to her party. Before he has a drink and swims her pool, she introduces him to many of her guests.

Rusty Towers: Guest at the Bunker party who floats in the pool on a rubber raft.

Bartender at Bunker Pool: Smiling man who gives Neddy a gin and tonic.

The Tomlinsons: Guests at the Bunker party.

The Levys: Neighbors whose pool Neddy swims. He takes shelter in their gazebo during a storm. 

The Lindleys: Family that once maintained horses and a riding ring.

The Welchers: Family whose pool has no water.

Elderly Driver: Man who allows Neddy to cross in front of his car.

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Lifeguards: Two men who order Neddy out of the public pool in the village of Lancaster.

Mr. and Mrs. Halloran: Elderly couple with the oldest pool in the county.

Eric and Helen Sachs: Neddy swims their pool but is disappointed that they no longer keep alcoholic beverages in their home. Helen is Mrs. Halloran's daughter. 

The Biswangers: Neighbors whom Neddy regards as socially inferior. When Neddy enters their property, a party is in progress. Grace Biswanger calls him a gate-crasher. Nevertheless, he swims their pool and gets a drink.Bartender at Biswanger Pool: Man who treats Neddy with hostility.Shirley Adams: Onetime mistress of Neddy Merrill. She treats Neddy rudely and says she won't lend him any more money.

Young Man With Shirley Adams

The Gilmartins, the Clydes: Families with pools that Neddy swims before arriving home.

Cook, Maid: People who once worked in the Merrill household.

Setting:

The time is a Sunday afternoon in the early 1960s. The action takes place in suburban New York Cityu0097probably in Westchester County, where author John Cheever once lived. Westchester, one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, is north of New York City and west of Connecticut.

Major Themes:

The Inevitable Passage of Time

Neddy’s journey home through the pools of his neighborhood turns into a journey through many years of his life, showing that the passage of time is inevitable, no matter how much one might ignore it. Neddy has mastered the art of denial. At the beginning of the story, the narrator tells us that Neddy is “far from young,” but he does his best to act young by sliding down a banister and diving headlong into a pool. The long afternoon at the Westerhazys’ pool seems timeless, no different, we can assume, from many other afternoons spent exactly the same way. Neddy’s idea to swim home seems like just one more idea in a series of ideas that have popped up on many similar occasions.

As Neddy’s journey progresses, we see that time is actually passing much more quickly than Neddy realizes. Leaves and hedges turn yellow and

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red, the constellations in the sky change, and the air gets colder. Friends are not at home when he expects them to be, he faces scorn from the people he’d once scorned, his mistress wants nothing to do with him, and he learns that a friend has been very ill. All of these changes have happened without Neddy’s knowledge. Neddy questions his memory, but he also wonders whether he has simply denied reality to a dangerous degree. His peers have acted their age and faced adult problems, whereas he has resisted. His former mistress even asks him, “Will you ever grow up?” Only at the end of the story when Neddy faces his dark, empty house does he realize that time has passed. He has tried to ignore it, but its passage has proven to be inevitable.

The Emptiness of Suburbia

As Neddy makes his journey across the county, we see that emptiness and despair lie beneath the sunny façade of suburbia. Although Neddy seems to have a full, happy life, he nevertheless remains isolated from others. He makes a habit of rejecting invitations and has been out of touch with many people whom he considers friends. Neddy can’t even seem to remember personal details about many of them, such as when Mrs. Levy bought her Japanese lanterns. He knows the rules of the social world he occupies, but this is a world built primarily on appearances. Along his path, he encounters the comfortable trappings of high society, but no genuine friends. And everywhere he goes, people are drinking heavily, which suggests that there is something from which they are trying to escape or hide.

The emptiness of suburbia also applies to Neddy’s love life. Even though Neddy names his pool path after his wife, Lucinda, he is cut off from her as well by virtue of his affair with Shirley Adams. The affair, however, also lacks genuine love. When Neddy thinks about Shirley, he defines “love” as “sexual roughhouse,” which is what he looks to for comfort and warmth. At the end of the story, when Neddy is actually alone and facing his empty house, the true state of his life is, for the first time, clear. The foundations were flimsy and his relationships weak.

Summary:

On a Sunday afternoon in midsummer, Neddy and Lucinda Merrill and Helen and Donald Westerhazy sit around the Westerhazys’ pool, complaining about their hangovers. They are all drinking. Neddy feels young, energetic, and happy. He decides to get home by swimming across all the pools in his county. He feels like an explorer. He dives into the Westerhazys’ pool, swims across, and gets out on the other side. He thinks about all the pools that lie ahead and the friends that await him.

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He walks to the Grahams’ pool, swims across, then has a drink. He next swims across the Hammers’ pool, then several others. At the Bunkers’ pool, a party is going on. Enid Bunker greets him, telling him that she’s happy he could come to the party after all. He has a drink, then moves on. The Levys aren’t home, but Neddy swims across their pool anyway and helps himself to a drink, feeling very contented. A storm begins, and Neddy waits it out in the Levys’ gazebo. After the storm, he notices that red and yellow leaves are scattered all over the lawn.

Neddy heads toward the Welchers’ pool. On his way, he finds that the Lindleys’ horse-riding area is overgrown, and he can’t remember whether he heard that the Lindleys were going away for the summer. At the Welchers’ house, he finds that the pool is empty, which Neddy thinks is strange. There is a for-sale sign in front of their house. Neddy tries to remember when he last heard from the Welchers. He wonders whether his memory is failing him or he has just repressed unpleasant information.

Neddy waits for a long time to cross a highway, and people in the cars going by yell and throw things at him. He knows that he should head back to the Westerhazys’, but he can’t bring himself to do so. He finally manages to cross to the median and then to the other side. He walks to a public pool, showers, and swims across, disgusted by the crowds and the overly chlorinated water. Then he walks to the Hallorans’. He takes off his swim trunks because he knows the Hallorans enjoy being naked and swims across the pool. The Hallorans greet him and say that they’re sorry for all his “misfortunes,” hinting that he’s sold his house and something has happened to his family. Neddy denies that anything has happened, puts his swim trunks back on, and leaves. He feels cold and weak and smells burning wood. He wishes he could have a drink of whiskey so that he could warm up and get some energy.

Neddy asks for a drink when he gets to Helen and Eric Sachses’ pool, but Helen says they haven’t been drinking since Eric had an operation three years ago. Neddy has no recollection that Eric had been sick. He swims across their pool, then tells them he hopes to see them again soon.

He goes to the Biswangers’ house. The Biswangers regularly invite him and Lucinda to dinner, but they always refuse because the Biswangers are of a lower social standing. A party is going on, and Neddy goes to the bar. Grace Biswanger greets him coldly, and the bartender is rude to him. Neddy knows that their odd behavior means something has happened to his own social standing because caterers and bartenders always know what’s happening in his social circle. In the background, Grace says something about someone losing all their money and asking her for a loan. Neddy swims across the pool, then leaves.

He expects to get a warm welcome at Shirley Adams’s pool because Shirley had been his mistress, although he can’t remember how long ago the

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affair had ended. Shirley tells him she won’t give him any more money and that she won’t give him a drink because someone is in the house. Neddy swims across the pool, but he has trouble getting out and must use the ladder. As he walks away, he smells fall flowers and sees fall constellations in the sky.

Neddy starts crying for the first time since childhood, feeling cold and confused. He thinks that he has just been swimming too long and needs a drink and dry clothes. He swims weakly across a few more pools. Finally, he reaches his own house. The lights are all off, and Neddy doesn’t know where everyone could be. Every door is locked, and no one answers when he knocks. He looks in the windows and sees that his house is empty.

Analysis:

John Cheever is famous for the fictional world within his novels and short stories, a world where wealth and privilege do not protect his characters from despair, heartbreak, and disaster. Cheever generally sets his fiction in the Northeastern United States, usually the affluent suburbs of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. His characters are preppy, wealthy, and white and not above snobbery and elitism. Extramarital affairs, family drama, and family feuds—particular between brothers—are commonplace. Happiness, although seemingly promised by wealth and all its comfortable trappings, always seems just out of reach. And alcohol—primarily gin—plays a prominent role in almost every social interaction.

The world of “The Swimmer” is typical Cheever, full of all the trappings of the upper middle class as well as the persistent malaise that accompanies them. Cheever bombards us with details from Neddy’s world: in the first paragraph of the story, he mentions the church, golf course, tennis court, Audubon group, and adults who have been drinking excessively. Immediately, we understand that this is a wealthy, privileged world, where adults can spend entire afternoons drinking gin by the poolside, secure with their position in society. Beneath this security and bloated comfort, however, lie a strict, punitive social hierarchy; fragile relationships; and unhappiness. Neddy experiences some undefined misfortune that pushes him down in the social ranks, and in his world, the snubbing by a bartender is a significant offense. He loses track of friends and doesn’t even know about their moves or illnesses. He cheats on his wife, abandons his mistress, and consequently ends up alone. Although not all of Cheever’s stories take the surreal, twisting path of “The Swimmer,” many revolve around this theme of fragile happiness and existential meaninglessness.

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Title: THREE QUESTIONS

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Setting: The story is initially set in a kingdom. The setting however, shifted to a mountain, the abode of the hermit who was to provide the answers to the King’s three questions.

Characters:

The King who thought if he knew when is the best time to do each thing, if he knew who were the right people to listen to and whom to avoid, and if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail.

The learned men who attempted to answer the King’s questions but who answered the questions differently.

The wise hermit whose wisdom the King sought, and who only received common folks.

The King’s bodyguard whom the King left behind when he went to see the hermit.

The King’s enemy who swore him revenge but who ended up being tended by the King himself.

Major themes:

The Importance of Life’s Purpose

When we try to read the story, we are introduced to a leader who was put into power not by wisdom nor by leadership skill but by family succession. In the process of serving as the supreme ruler, the king who, in the beginning was purposeless began to think in a nobler way, thinking of becoming a good person which will eventually propel him to becoming a good ruler.

The hermit’s answer to the king’s third question is something worth adapting as a guiding principle: one has to have a purpose in life and that

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purpose is to do good, for, by the hermit’s words, “that purpose alone was man sent into this life.”

Looking at the concept of doing good as being the sole purpose of man’s existence in life, we are taken into the Indian principle of dharma, the other half of karma which seems to have happened in The Three Questions. The principle of dharma states that we human beings are duty bound to do something, and that something is to do good.

The power of the present

The hermit’s answer as to when is the best time to do everything is now, the present time. The hermit tries to make us understand that the only time nearest to being concrete is the present for the past has gone and we cannot anymore claim it back and tomorrow is still uncertain and as sure as its uncertainty is the uncertainty of life. However, the hermit emphasized how important is the present time and what is being done at present for it is the time over which we human beings have dominion.

The vulnerability of power

The story on The Three Questions presents to us the vulnerability not only of the common tao but even of those who are in power and who command the most respect from people around them. Power may be a very strong force but is not equated with wisdom. That the king sought wisdom from other people is an admission of his imperfection, his vulnerability to flaws and his need for the help of other people. The fact that a only a lowly hermit was able to provide him with answers only emphasizes the story’s claim of the vulnerability of power and authority.

Summary:

The thought came to a certain king that he would never fail if he knew three things. These three things were

What is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times?

Many educated men attempted to answer the king's questions, but they all came up with different answers. The king decided that he needed to ask a wise hermit in a nearby village. The hermit would only see common folk, however, so the king disguised himself and left his guards behind to see the hermit. The hermit was digging flower beds when the king arrived. The king asked his questions, but the hermit went on digging rather laboriously. The king offered to dig for him for a while. After digging for some time, the

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king again asked his questions. Before the hermit could answer, a man emerged from the woods. He was bleeding from a terrible stomach wound. The king tended to him, and they stayed the night in the hermit's hut. By the next day the wounded man was doing better, but was incredulous at the help he had received. The man confessed that he knew who the king was, and that the king had executed his brother and seized his property. He had come to kill the king, but the guards wounded him in the stomach. The man pledged allegiance to the king, and he went on his way. The king asked the hermit again for his answers, and the hermit responded that he had just had his questions answered.

The most important time is now. The present is the only time over which we have power.

The most important person is whoever you are with. The most important thing is to do good to the person you are with.

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Title: THE FLY

Author: Katherine Mansfield

Setting:

The story takes place during a war, and 6 years after the death of the boss’ son. This information is important to the because it gives a better understanding to the reader that the boss will have an internal struggle regarding the war and the death of his son. This setting also sets the tone for the story; it gives it a sense of melancholy, hopelessness, resentment, and anger.

Characters:

Mr Woodifield is consistently described as a baby even though he is aged

and sick. Mr Woodifield is consistently contrasted with the Boss, five years

older, but still rosy and strong.

The Boss is immensely proud of all his possessions, most of them recently

obtained. His geniality is an expression of his feelings of superiority.

Mr Woodifield’s perfectly normal response to his own dead son is set next to

the Boss’ strange detachment.

After Mr Woodifield leaves, readers are brought inside the mind of the Boss

as he reflects on his (the Boss) son and relationship with him. What the

boss says is in strange contrast to what he appears to be. He says that life

had no other meaning except for his son and that when he heard of his son’s

death 6 years ago, he had left his office ‘a broken man, with his life in ruins’.

But the reader sees he does not look like a broken man and his life does not

appear to be in ruins at all.

Macey, the office clerk.

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The fly, the symbol of the story.

Gertrude, Mr. Woodifield’s daughter.

Major Themes:

Conquest of time over grief

No doubt, this is quite established fact that the story “The Fly” is about the conquest of time over grief. This is the first theme of the story.To show that time conquers grief the writer presents two characters, Mr. Woodifield and his ex-boss. Both of them lost their only sons six years ago. It was a long period and it had healed up their grief.

First, the writer tells us about the state of grief of Mr. Woodifield. He has forgotten everything. He is able to remember about the grave of his some after drinking whisky. He talks about his son and his grave, but does not feel any pang of grief. This clearly shows that the time has made him forget his grief. Then the writer talks about the state of grief of the boss. The Boss believed that time would not make any difference to his grief. Now his present state of grief is different. After the departure of old Woodifield, he sits in the chair. He wants to feel the same pang of grief that he used to feel. The writer expresses his feelings very beautifully: “He wanted, he intended, he arranged to weep…. But no tears came yet.” This is the present condition of his grief. Time has conquered his grief.

He wants to feel the pang of grief. As a last try, he decides to get up and have a look at his son’s photograph. However, a fly in the inkpot attracts his attention and he forgets about his son and the grief in a moment. He starts dropping drops of ink on the fly to enjoy its struggle. After the death of the fly, he tries to remember what he was thinking, but cannot. This clearly shows that time has conquered his grief.

Helplessness of man before fate

When we read the story carefully, we find that the fly in the story symbolizes helplessness of man before fate. Just like the fly, man tries hard and gets out of the grip of death for the time being, but fate captures him again. Man has no power to defy fate and fall an easy prey to it. When we read the story, we find that the writer and all the characters in the story stand for the fly.

To convey this idea, the writer tells a brief incident. A fly falls into an inkpot. The Boss sees it, puts it on a blotting paper, and enjoys its strength again. At last, the fly dies of those drops of ink.

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This incident of the fly highly symbolic. The writer herself died of T.B that was incurable at that time. Many people were dying at that time. Later, man discovered a cure for the disease and thought that he had escaped death and had defied fate. However, just like the Boss, fate dropped another drop – AIDS. Now many people are dying of it. Now it is the last drop. Just like the fly, people cannot survive it. We hope that man will discover a cure for it. However, who knows what the next drop is like.

Summary:

The story “Fly” throws light on the fact that time is a great healer and it conquers grief.

Mr. Woodifield comes to see his ex-boss. He is retired and is a heart patient. He praises the new setting and furniture of the office. Then the boss offers him whisky. After drinking it, Mr. Woodifield remembers what he has forgotten. He tells the boss that his daughters have visited the graves of the boss’s as well as Mr. Woodsfield’s son. Actually, they have died in a war.

When Mr. Woodifield has gone, the boss remembers his dead son. He tries to have the same feelings of grief as he felt on the day of his death. However, he fails. For the last try, he decides to go to the photograph of his son, but a fly in an inkpot attracts his attention. He forgets all about his son.

He takes the fly out of the inkpot and puts it on a blotting paper. As soon as the fly is about to fly, he drops a drop of ink on it and enjoys its struggle. At last, the fly dies of drops of ink. The boss throws it away and orders for a fresh blotting paper. Then he tries to remember what he was thinking before attending to the fly. It means he forgets his dead son again.

Therefore, we are just like the fly in the story and the Boss is just like a god who kills it just for his sport. This is the second theme of the story.

Analysis:

"The Fly" by Katherine Mansfield (1888 to 1923-New Zealand) was first published in 1922 and then republished by her husband, John Middleton Murry in a collection of her works he edited, The Dove's Nest and Other Stories, in 1923.   "The Fly" is among Mansfield's most famous stories.     This story, centering on two elderly men shows Mansfield can write in a sympathetic and very understanding way about characters outside her normal range.    In many of her stories the lead characters are women in their late teens or twenties.  In several of the stories older men are treated almost as ogres.

The lead character in "The Fly" is Mr.  Woodifield, an elderly man who lives with his daughters and his wife.    He has suffered it seems a stroke and

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is allowed out of the house on his own only once a week.    He lost his son in WWI (1914 to 1918).      Mr. Woodifield for many years worked for a man five years older than he is who still enjoys good health. Mr. Woodifield likes to go to his old office and visit with his boss on his day out.  They share an additional bond in that the boss (that is what he is called in the story) also lost a son in WWI.   (I think it is worth knowing here that Mansfield's only brother was killed in a training exercise in WWI). The boss tries to avoid thinking about what happened to his son where Mr. Woodifield feels a need to talk of his son with someone who has a similar experience.   

Mansfield does a brilliant job in depicting different ways people cope with aging and with the death of a child in war.     The standard cliche is no parent wants to outlive his or her child and we see the truth of that in this story.The thoughts of the boss are very poignantly and beautifully manifested in the prose of Mansfield:

Other men perhaps might recover, might live their loss down, but not he. How was it possible ? His boy was an only son. Ever since his birth the boss had worked at building up this business for him ; it had no other

meaning if it was not for the boy. Life itself had come to have no other meaning. How on earth could he have slaved, denied himself, kept

going all those years without the promise for ever before him of the boy's stepping into his shoes and carrying on where he left off ?

After Mr. Woodifield (I wonder if this is meant to evoke the fields in which so many young men lost their lives during the war) leaves the boss struggles not to weep and then notices a  fly has landed in his inkwell.    I am sure what happens next has been subject to countless symbolic interpretations.    Most readers see the actions of the boss toward the fly as somehow representing the attitude of the powerful toward the powerless in the politics of the world.    The boss is seen as a brutal character.   To me this is wrong.   I see the boss as somehow displacing his anger in that he does not know who should be blamed for the death of his son.     The depth of this story is not limited by the artistry  of Mansfield but by our ability to respond to her work.   

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