Who Are The Main Characters In The Swimmer?

Neddy Merrill’s the only true ‘main character,’ but the neighbors he encounters—like the Hallorans or the Biswangers—act as mirrors for his unraveling. Some pity him, others mock him, and a few seem genuinely confused by his presence. It’s a quiet, devastating portrait of how society treats those who’ve lost their place in it. The real tension comes from the gaps in their conversations, the things left unsaid.

If you’ve ever felt like an outsider looking in, 'The Swimmer' will hit hard. Neddy’s journey is surreal but painfully relatable—he’s surrounded by people who either don’t see him or choose not to. The neighbors aren’t deeply fleshed out, but they don’t need to be; they’re snapshots of a world moving on without him. There’s this one couple, the Lears, who invite him for a drink but seem uneasy, like they’re humoring a stranger. Then there’s the public pool scene, where the attendant treats him like a nuisance. It’s all so deliberate: every character reflects a facet of Neddy’s isolation. Even his own family’s absence speaks volumes. The story’s brilliance is in how it turns a suburban setting into a psychological minefield, and the ‘main characters’ are really just fragments of Neddy’s disintegrating identity.

The Swimmer is such a hauntingly beautiful short story by John Cheever, and it's one of those works that lingers in your mind long after you finish it. The protagonist, Neddy Merrill, is this seemingly affluent, middle-aged man who decides to 'swim' his way home through a series of backyard pools in his suburban neighborhood. At first, he comes across as charming and full of life, but as the story progresses, you start peeling back layers of his reality—his relationships, his past, and the unsettling truth of his situation. The other 'characters' are mostly the neighbors he encounters at each pool, like the Hallorans or the Biswangers, who react to him with varying degrees of warmth or discomfort. But honestly, the most fascinating 'character' might be time itself—the way it distorts and reveals things about Neddy's life as he moves from pool to pool. It's a masterpiece of subtle horror and existential dread, wrapped in this deceptively simple premise.

What really gets me about 'The Swimmer' is how Cheever uses the supporting cast to mirror Neddy's unraveling. Some neighbors treat him like a ghost, others with pity, and a few barely recognize him. It’s like each interaction chips away at his self-image until there’s nothing left but the raw, painful truth. I’ve reread it a dozen times, and each time, I notice new details in how those side characters reflect Neddy’s decline—like how the Biswangers’ party feels like a grotesque parody of the social circles he once belonged to. The story doesn’t need a huge cast; every person Neddy meets is a brushstroke in this portrait of denial and decay.

Neddy Merrill’s the heart of 'The Swimmer,' but man, the way Cheever writes him is genius. He starts off like this golden boy, all confidence and athleticism, but by the end? You realize he’s a crumbling mess, and the people around him—his wife Lucinda (who’s barely there but feels ominously absent), the skeptical Hallorans, the dismissive Biswangers—are like echoes of the life he’s lost. It’s not a crowded story, but every character serves a purpose. Even the shallow, partying neighbors at the later pools highlight how far Neddy’s fallen from grace. The beauty of it is how little dialogue there is; their reactions to him tell you everything. Like when Mrs. Halloran casually mentions his daughters ‘don’t speak to him anymore’—it’s a gut punch disguised as small talk. The story’s power comes from what’s unsaid, and the characters are just vessels for that silence.