Throughout the story, John Cheever uses the literary device of symbolism to illustrate the theme of a cyclical human experience that is eroded each day. Throughout the story "The Swimmer", Cheever uses this device to represent a multitude of symbols. For example, the main and initial symbol perceived in everyone's mind are water pools. While spending the day drinking at his neighbors' house, he has the epiphany of swimming in all the pools on the way home. But before that, the main character, Neddy, complains about the days where everyone complains about drinking too much last night. The day is tedious and nothing extraordinary is on the horizon. Neddy's journey turns out not to be much different. For every pool the stereotypical suburban maquis swims in, he only goes through a period of time and monotony. These pools are all the same, and when he comes out the other side, he is not even aware of what has just happened. The analyzers of this poem murmured: “He swam in the Westerhazy pool. And what are we swimming in a pool if not repetitive lengths? Even the line he uses is repetitive” (Blythe & Sweet). This is supported by Cheever's writing: "He swam a jerky crawl, breathing either on every stroke or on every fourth stroke and counting somewhere in the back of his mind the one-two one-two of a stroke floating foot” (Cheever). Cheever's intentions, as well as those of Blythe and Sweet in these quotes, are that nothing is new, everything is the same. This is why many can identify with this idea, and for this reason everyone is a swimmer in their own way. Swim with unvarying movements in similar pools of wasted time and repetition. It is obvious that nature manifests the passage of time. The eroding mountain...... middle of paper ...... His family and friends are moving away from him because he has disappeared from their lives. Blythe and Sweet mention that "time, despite Neddy's repeated attempts to stop it, did not stop." He visits every house, greets his husband and wife in the same way, and swims the same way to leave. As time goes by, he realizes that people are becoming more and more hostile to his loving gestures. This reaches a new level when “he visits the Welchers, only to find the swimming pool drained, the furniture folded and stacked, the bathhouse locked, and their house for sale” (Cheever). Neddy wonders “how his friends could have left without telling him”. When he comes home cold and tired, all he wants is to be greeted by his beautiful wife and energetic children. The opposite happens when he looks out the window and sees a cruel darkness. As loved ones leave his life, so does his mental health.