Dante’S Inferno And The Swimmer

Dante’s Inferno and The Swimmer

Dante’s ever popular, poem, “ The Inferno,” and John Cheever’s “ The Swimmer” is both set upon the theme, reflecting on ones life. Cheever highly accepts the profundity of Dante’s pious allegory (1). In the swimmer, the protagonist Neddy Merrils, swims throughout his well-heeled neighborhood, which is credited the intense journey of Dante. The Swimmer, a story about a man’s eight-mile journey home, is a book that explores how a man reflects upon life. Many of the themes used in The Swimmer have been influenced by themes from Dante’s Inferno of The Divine Comedy. Both books explore how two men deal with the knowledge that they know that they have done something wrong and the physical as well as the mental journey both take to reach their destination.

In The Swimmer, the protagonist Neddy chooses to go home by swimming through a chain of pools that lead to his destination. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante is lost in the woods, and is found by Virgil, who was sent by his former lover Beatrix to lead him home, however, Dante must journey through hell in order to reach his destination. The similarity in their journeys is the unique paths that both take to reach their destination. Another parallel that one might take not of is how Dante walks through eight levels of hell and of how Neddy walks eight miles home.

Neddy chooses to swim through the chain of pools to clean himself, as if he was trying to baptize himself. However, as he visits people he knew, he takes note of their cryptic comments about his life and their attitudes towards him. By his journeys end

Neddy realizes that his life has long been destroyed, and he has forgotten simply because he cannot come to terms with his misfortunes. In Dante’s Inferno, as Dante journeys through hell, he walks through all eight levels of hell, and for each level of hell, he witnesses horrifying punishments for committers of each and every sin. Now, while the eight miles that Neddy swims/walks to get home are nowhere near as sever an experience as Hell, he does meet his neighbors and others who are in the act of committing many of the sins described in Dante’s Inferno. Along Dante’s journey through hell, Dante realizes that the punishments