Swimming Through the Stages of Existential Awareness

He drinks too much, he acts childish and slides down his banister, and his main goal is to swim across the county, yet he still can be explained with existentialism. Is it possible that the protagonist in The Swimmer, by John Cheever, is able to move through the stages of existential awareness? “Existential literature focuses upon the ambiguity of modern life and upon how it affects individuals and how they deal with it” (Barrett 1). The protagonist in The Swimmer, Neddy Merrill, ‘swims’ through the stages of existentialism and ends up in the conformity versus freedom, choice, commitment, and community stage.
The story begins with the townspeople talking about the previous Saturday and how they drank too much. This is a perfect set up for stage one of existentialism, which is the primacy of the individual. This means that a character has to find his individual importance in life. This is part of the character’s emotional state of being and their inner self. Nedd...