Nature Imagery in the Novels of John Cheever Thesis
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
2-79 RAIN AND DIAGONAL LIGHT: NATURE IMAGERY IN THE NOVELS OF JOHN CHEEVER THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By Cynthia J. Baker, B.A. Denton, Texas December , 1987 Baker, Cynthia J., Rain and Diagonal Light: Nature Imagery in the Novels of John Cheever. Master of Arts (English), December, 1987, 92 pp., bibliography, 28 titles. John Cheever uses nature imagery, particularly images of light and water, to support his main themes of nostalgia, memory, tradition, alienation, travel, and confinement in his five novels. In the novels these images entwine and intersect to reveal Cheever's vision of an attainable earthly paradise comprised of familial love and an appreciation of the beauties and strengths of the natural worId. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER page I. INTRODUCT ION........ .. ...... P.1 1I. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE AND THE WAPSHOT SCANDAL .. ... .... 10 IIl. BULLET PARK.37 IV. FALCONER. ......... .... 60 V. OH WHAT A PARADISE IT SEEMS.-.-........ .. 72 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..... 94 i i i CHAPTER I INTRODUCT ION In a 11977 interview focusing on his work, John Cheever expressed a strong conviction in the "boundlessness of possibility" offered to man in the modern world (Hersey 26), and this conviction is a dominant concept in his five novels, The Wapshot Chronicle, The Wapshot Scandal, Bullet Park, Falconer, and Oh What a Paradise It Seems, published between 1957 and 1982. Cheever consistently uses his principle of possibility, verbalized by one character as "one can do better than this," as an important component in all his major themes, including those of nostalgia, memory, tradition, alienation, travel, and confinement. Throughout the novels, these themes entwine and intersect to gradually reveal Cheever's unique vision of the contemporary world as a place that is undoubtedly flawed, yet still offers a potential for personal happiness. Each theme, expanded by Cheever's certainty that contentment is possible in the contemporary world, offers a new and separate view into Cheever's complex vision, and each theme is supported by images drawn from a single source, that of the world of nature. 1 2 Natural imagery is a significant support of the themes of nostalgia and memory. In Cheever's novels, the term nostalgia often signifies the longing individuals have for a time and place that no longer exists,.a seemingly inborn desire to regain an Edenic existence of security and innocence. But the sense of nostalgia is not meant to be a negative emotion. In a 1977 interview, Cheever stated that nostalgia is "one of the greatest human emotions. No regret for the past, but a keen sense of the present, saying, How splendid it was! But spoken without regret" (Munro 75). Thus nostalgia is an appreciation of the past, and this joyful appreciation is a natural enhancement of the present. While nostalgia implies brief glimpses of some thing that is gone and seems for Cheever to be a part of man's universal soul and shared with others, memory is the individual's store of personal and unique remembrances of events that have actually occurred. in his lifetime. But, in Cheever's world, memory is not a passive accumulation of past occurrences, but a potent power in itself that may propel characters into unexpected thought or action. Both nostalgia and memory are essential parts of an individual's personality, and Cheever uses a variety of natural images to stimulate both memory and nostalgia in a consistently positive way. Thus the sound of thunder may remind a man of what it was like to be young or the feel of rain may 3 trigger a memory of love and happiness. Again, these images do not cause a feeling of regret; they remind characters of the joys of the past and also seem to create a guarded optimism that the joy may be found again. Cheever's theme of nostalgia is often joined with natural imagery to form one particular controlling image, that of modern man searching for an earthly paradise. For Cheever's characters, a vision of sunlight slanting across trees may cause one to "remember" an Eden, although he has never actually lived in a paradise, or the sight of a snow-capped mountain above a clear lake may cause one to long for a place and time that have not existed in his lifetime. These images are particularly important to man because the world he must now live in seems to be a confusing mess of contradictions that often cause human disappointment and misery. Cheever's concept of man existing in a chaotic environment while longing for a recoverable haven of peace and order again reflects his principle of possibility, but also encompasses the idea that man must consciously strive for a paradise in order to achieve it. The subtle but unflagging sense of hope and optimism that this philosophy expresses seems paradoxical in a writer known as a chronicler of modern absurdities that sometimes metamorphose into modern horrors, but it is Cheever's continual insistence that the world perpetually offers an opportunity for joy and 4 contentment that leads critic Samuel Coale to state that Cheever was determined "to discover beauty and possible redemption even in the modern landscape" and is creating in his fiction a "new but precarious Eden" (95). Cheever's precarious Eden is not a literal place which each character must discover or create, nor a place of retirement and meditation, but a continually existing paradise of inner serenity that man can obtain despite the complexities of modern life. Although his vision is of an unseen paradise for the spirit, Cheever uses natural imagery drawn from the living world to remind man that such earthly contentment may indeed be achieved. The beauties of the sky, of sunlight, of the mountains, and of the rain and the wind exist in Cheever's fiction not only for his characters to see and feel, but also as signposts to symbolize an internal counterpoint, the beauties of a contented and orderly soul. As a character nears his own personal paradise, usually comprised of a sense of familial love, his awareness and enjoyment of the natural world seems to intensify; and often a natural phenomena, particularly a sudden flash of sunlight or the quick onset of rain, seems to act as an independent entity which forces him to the realization that life can indeed be lived in a moralistic manner despite the complexities of the modern world, and that this chosen manner of living will bring great peace. 6 If nostalgia and memory guide man toward the "boundlessness of possibility," other themes show the obstacles that slow his progress. Cheever's theme of travel emphasizes the rootlessness of twentieth-century American life and is used to contrast another theme, that of the place of tradition in the modern world. In a 1979 article, Cheever stated that "suburbia, which is the setting for many of my stories, reflects the restlessness, the rootlessness of modern lives. It is a way of life that had to be improvised. There were no suburban traditions" ("Fiction" 24). Traditions are difficult to establish in a new society, and Cheever complicates this problem with his travel theme. Cheever's characters seem to travel constantly--they daily ride the train into the city for work or entertainment, fly from country to country on business or pleasure, or move around the nation pursuing employment. Cheever implies that this excessive mobility has destroyed the security naturally given by an unchanging home address that is returned to on a daily basis. In Cheever's vision of the world, continual travel becomes a disorienting occupation in itself and makes an establishment of traditional values, which demands a fixed group of individuals with only occasional newcomers, almost impossible. In addition, consistent travel removes man from a positive contact with nature, a constant which would bring 6 needed security. Thus the mountains become only obstacles to be overcome as man moves around the planet, and the rain and snow only impediments that slow his movements. Man largely ignores nature in his quest for perpetual activity, and the gifts that nature may present, the stimulation of memory and nostalgia, are lost. The complex contemporary world becomes more of a disappointment to man, and this disappointment may be another motivation for him to seek some form of a calm, earthly paradise. Together, consistent travel and a lack of tradition create the sense of isolation and alienation that haunts many of Cheever's characters. This theme of alienation implies that the contemporary world has destroyed the cultural continuity of social attitudes and institutions, and, without these dependable supports, man becomes increasingly alienated from himself and from others. Robert Collins defines this theme as man moving "from a central role in his own life to that of a peripheral, almost ignored spectator of a social process" (2). Other blocks to the fulfillment of Cheever's principle of possibility are personal hindrances that each character must confront and that may confine him to a particular form of being or action. Some confinements, Cheever's own term for various external and internal restrictions, are easily seen--Ezkiel Farragut's confinement in Falconer prison is the most obvious--while others, such as selfishness or 7 maliciousness, are hidden within the personality. These confinements prevent man from- living a life of joy or pleasure, increase his alienation, and hamper his quest for a recoverable paradise. Into this theme of confinement Cheever incorporates the necessity of a continued struggle against various confinements, and Cheever illustrates this theme with natural imagery.