The Bullet Park and Five Forty Eight by John Cheever - Essay Example

OF THE OF PROFFESOR: NUMBER: NOVEL THE BULLET PARK AND THE STORY “FIVE FORTY EIGHT” BY JOHN CHEEVER John Cheever is the author of seven collections of short stories and 5 novels. He was awarded National Medal of Literature from American Academy of Arts and Literature. John was often criticized as peerless short story writer but his work especially novels showed the tone of summing up and tension of vision. Cheever’s work shows the complexity of situation and turmoil that lies beneath the characters seemingly soothing aura. The great thing about John Cheever was his capacity for invention. (Donaldson,1998).He merges compassion and wit while maintaining the absurdity of the surroundings’ and pointlessness of their behaviors and actions, his stories hold out the hope of redemption in love and sense of revenge and unforgiving attitude Such as in the story “Five-forty-Five” and his novel” The bullet park”. John Cheever was a complex person himself and during the course of his life he was saddled by the habit of alcoholism and infidelities but he presented himself so earnestly as a Man in Brooks’ brother suit, his life was as contradictory as his characters and so his writing is not neat and raises so many questions and answer’s very less.(The guardian,2009). Cheever rightly described himself near the end of his life, in a heartbreaking sentence: "I am one of those old men; I am like a voyager who cannot remember the streams he has travelled." (Gottlieb,2002). Vengeance and conflict due to spiritual and moral emptiness is evident between contradictory characters. In the novel “ The Bullet Park”, author portrays an array of well kept houses and more than well mannered people of the town the Bullet Park but Cheever’s characters always has a double meaning to them and an unobserving reader might fail to see the crouching beast dangerously hidden behind those well kept houses. The story unfolds as a fateful intersection of two men the innocent Eliot Nailles and his nemesis, Paul Hammer, whose object is to murder his neighbors son, takes place. The novel has an aura of retribution from the beginning. For example the chosen names for the characters are Hammer and Nailles, which show the exact opposite of each other and every quality of hammer is lacked in a nail. It is the first impression of reckless and conflicting situation between the two characters and the author tried to expose their rivalry for each other by his blunt, quite witty and creative writing.(Shannon,1998) Cheever’s view of rivalry and revenge is also seen in the description of his characters as the two main characters’ were exactly opposite of each other, in short the characters are also in the state of conflict, not just in their names but also in their defining characters as well. In the beginning the complete description of Elliot Nailles is given as person, who is responsible, loving and caring in short a good man but incomplete because he is a simple minded optimist who keeps his expectations to the sky no matter what befalls him. He is a simple man so uncomplicated that the intricacies of life disgust him. According to him anything but action should be taken in demanding situations or emotions should not be valued so much in front of responsibilities. Elliot’s son Tony is another one of his dilemmas, as he refuses to leave his bed just because he feels sad and Nailles is stumped the plight of his son. On the other hand Hammer is everything Nailles is not, a bastard son of a mother and absent father. With his dashing looks Hammer represents instability, restlessness and irregularity of his character. Where Nailles was utterly simple, Hammer is so complex that he is unable to understand himself. His sinful life became a reason for depression and he takes decision to sooth his conscience with sacrifice. Now here what is notable, is lack of logic behind the planned murder. There is no explanation of why and what. In Cheever’s novel one is often left with the question of why, to solve. The absence of proper upbringing and aloofness causes this instability of his mental state and as a revenge for his misfortunes in life. He decides to murder a son of a proper family man. Everything he could not get to become a proper family man with good carrier and a son. The clash of the two characters and the challenge faced by each of them are exactly opposite. The other conflicting situations in the story are the characters of wit and seriousness present in Cheever’s writing. The combination of the two scenerios at one time looks upon his exceptional beauty of writing and on the other hand conflicts the meaning of the situation. In the short story “Five forty Eight” from the book The stories of John Cheever, two characters are again at a conflict to each other namely Blake, who is overly confident and a perfectionist and the other hand Miss Dent, Blake’s stalker is an emotionally and mentally an unstable person, who heads out to take the revenge from Blake for playing with her shattered feelings. In the beginning Blake is portrayed as the victim of the situation but afterwards he is shown as the villain as he plays with her mind and feelings and leaves her jobless, alone and even more frail than ever before. Later, Cheever exploits the contrasts between the turmoil of his character’s inner lives and the seeming tranquility of their outer lives. Despite of the stalker’s psychotic history it was Blake whose inner psychological problems seep during the course of the story. In the beginning Blake is introduced as a confident and distracted, an over successful person. He observes his stalker and exactly knows why he was being stalked but he refuses to pay attention to the situation because he personally knows the stalker and even know about her weak emotional background (Werlock,2006). So he is not afraid of her and thinks that she might be lonely or sad and wants to reconnect with him. Blake feels the guilt of his act and the loath on Miss Dent’s face leave him with a bit of remorse but he does not think about it hard enough to speculate his behavior. It is afterwards exposed to the reader how Blake feeds on women, especially women of low self esteem because to him they are not human and anyone without self assurance like him was not worthy of his consideration. While Miss Dent is the true sufferer facing the emotional turmoil is forced to take the revenge, she was not the only one in the story with deep seated emotional problems. Like all of Cheever’s stories Five forty Eight is not fueled with explosive but rather by the foreboding that there is something explosive to come.(Bloom, 2004). Blake confided his weaknesses under the disguise of a powerful man who has complete control over his emotions. In all Cheever’s stories there’s always a turn over, where villain becomes the victim and loses his complete confidence and the victim becomes the self assured one. Miss dent saw Blake from an angle which was not possible before. She saw a wicked man who is living and stuck in his mess of life. This was not the image she expected, she saw herself in a better position than him afterwards. Which left her contended and satisfied her self esteem. Blake is a character shown completely ethical proof. Though he did feel the intensity of situation for a while, but became himself when the lingering danger was gone. This shows the stubborn attitude towards positive change. Cheever’s characters are depicted from the contemporary society. They are not mere figures on stage that the story revolved around, showing an adequate end. But these are characters brought to life with a purpose behind, to reveal the shallowness of sensible men and women. The conflicting moral and psychological issues suggest the complications of life which are often unseen and invisible. The naked emotions and aims which are well hidden behind the shell of body are truly horrifying. If these thoughts or feelings would have been visible, the world would be on war at all times. Moreover, similar mentally disturb characters are seen in both stories. The element of jealousy, complexes, abused or improper upbringing, financial status and revenge are significant features of the society. These metafictional characters seem to live chaotic lives in the phenomenal world. His dark themes often offended the critiques. These characters are often; seem to be in conflict with their internal and external worlds. His stories revolve around similar themes. The lives which are visible to others have simultaneously hidden closets in them. They are locked away from the world so no one would come to know the dark secrets, which in turn would affect their normal lives. Undistinguishing features which all his characters portray are the living examples around us. His unsound characters are uncomfortable with themselves. They are ill at ease but they wear a mask of normality when they walk among people, a mask which shows that they are in control. His characters are well aware of their shabby morals and devilish darkness within, however they live a life of self-deception and deceive others along with them. BIBLIORAPHY Gottlieb, Robert. The Journals of John Cheever. s.l.: Vintage Books, 2008. Print. Top of Form Cheever, John. The Stories of John Cheever. New York, NY: Knopf, 1978. Print. Top of Form Donaldson, Scott. John Cheever: A Biography. New York: Random House, 1988. Print. Top of Form Cheever, John. Bullet Park: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1969. Print. Shannon P., Metonymy and metaphor in the fiction of John Cheever,1998 http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/546/ The Guardian, The Journals of John Cheever, 2009< Available at> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/31/journals-biography-john-cheever-dyer Werlock, Abby H. P. The Facts on File Companion to the American Novel. New York: Facts on File, 2006. Print. Bloom, Harold. John Cheever. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004. Print.Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More