In John Cheever's short story "The Swimmer", the main character Ned Merrill, does exactly as the story's title implies. The story is being told in the third person. It begins with a small group of people sitting around one of Ned Merrill's neighbor's pool one midsummer Sunday. All of the guests are talking of how they had drank too much the night before and are suffering from terrible hangovers.
             The story's main character, Ned, begins to feel as if he is a great swimmer who could swim a huge river. In order to prove this to himself he embarks on a journey to swim to his house. To do this he must swim in all of the pools possible between his neighbors, where he is now, and his own house. This would be no easy task by any means, considering his house is eight miles away.
             As the story goes on Ned begins to actually believe he is on some great journey. He refers to himself as a cartographer and pilgrim and goes on to name his path after his wife Lucinda. He also thought eventually people would line down the Lucinda River to watch him as some kind of hero. As he came to the first house he was treated, as he saw it, like any other explorer. He swam the length of their pool, and had a rest with his neighbors and then moved on.
             The story goes on with Ned swimming in his neighbor's pools and then he chats, rests, and occasionally has a drink with his neighbors. Ned reaches one house where no one is home and a storm begins to come up, so he takes cover in their the gazebo. While sitting there notices that an oak tree has brown leaves and some have fallen off even though it is midsummer. He then all of a sudden feels cold and uncomfortable. Although he presses on like the explorer he thinks he is.
             The next pool Ned comes to is the Welchers but their pool is covered up and all the pool furniture is packed up, there is also a for sale sign in the front yard. This was odd to Ne
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