An Analysis John Cheever’s
Satirical Aspect of Suburb’s Family in John Cheever’s
The Worm in the Apple Short Story
A.
Introduction
Suburb’s
live is identical with a nuclear family that busy with individual activities.
Each family has no much time to spend with the other society. Almost of them
spend their day boringly with only work-home cycle. They hardly ever have a
quality time for family to spend. But, they also have some aspects of socialism
that exist in their lives. In other word, it can be said that suburbans are
people that struggling to face the chaos of modern world in a outskirt of a big
city. In “The Worm in the Apple” short story by John Cheever, we find some
satirical aspects that occur in realities of suburban’s live. It can be seem of
how the surbubian spend their live. We found some ironic cases which occur during the story. We can get some moral values
from this story which initially derive from satires.
B.
Discussion
1.
Biography
of John Cheever
He
was born in Quincy, Massachutesetts on May 27, 1912. He was a second child of Frederick
Lincoln Cheever and Mary Liley Cheever. He had an older brother. His father owned
a shoe factory but it collapsed due to the gread depression of 1930s. His
mother supported the family’s necesity by the profit of her gift shop.
He attended
a a preparatory school in Braintree, Massachusetts. But he expelled from that
school because of his bad attitude in his seventeenth. Due to this, he
published his first work “Expelled”. After leaving school he toured Europe with
his brother.
In the
mid-1930s Cheever moved to New York City. He lived in a week boarding house on
Hudson Street in Greenwich Village. He supported his own life by writing summaries
for potential MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) movies. Then he assosiated with The New Yorker Magazine. In 1934 the
magazine published the first of 119 Cheever stories.
On March 22,
1941, Cheever married Mary Winternitz. They had three children. He spent four
years in the army during World War II (1939–45) and later spent two years
writing television scripts for, among other programs, "Life with
Father."
At the
height of success, he became an alcoholism.
This was a problem he did not fully admit to until his family placed him in a
rehabilitation center in 1975. Earlier, in 1972, he had suffered a massive
heart attack.
John Cheever
died of cancer on June 18, 1982. His final work, “Oh What A Paradise It Seems”, was published after his
death.
2.
Society
The
setting of place in this short story is in Shady Hills, a suburbia. It is a capture
of suburbia society.
3.
Summary
of the story
This
story is about a nuclear family, Crutchmans’, Lary and Helen, who have two
children, Tom and Rachel. They live in a suburb, named Shady Hill. The story
opened by a capture of Crutchmans’
live
place. It is told that they live happily in a big house on Hill Street. Lary
serves for navy. But for days he is adrift at sea on a raft after his ship
had been sunk by the enemy. Helen is the only one daughter of her father that
inherited a good deal of money. She earns money larger than Lary can.
It is
thought that the tragedy of navy can drive Lary to the nightmare, but actually
he can sleep well. In other side, Helen, who has larger income that her
husband, be thought that will have a bad behavior because of independence and damage the delicate
balances within their marriage, but actually they do the live well, Helen
spread her income among the charities and live with comfortable but modest
live.
Helen
loves her son badly. She gives and buys everything for his happiness. And when
she is favored her love to her son she is bound to discriminate her daughter.
Tom
fails in his junior year of high school and has to repeat it. Many families which
have beutiful daughter want Tom to be their son-in-law, he actually has so many
girl friends during his education time, but in his second year in college he announced his engagement to
Elizabeth Trustman and they were married after his graduation. And finally he
go to Germany to study his post and serve his time in the army.
It is different for Rachel. After
she lost her weight, she become a beautiful girl. She married a German gardener’s
son, Eric Reiner. Though her parents are not quiet agree with Rachel’s choise,
but they concelead their feelings and let her to be married. Eric gets some
scholarship to continue his study untill he reaches his Ph.D. in physics and
then he come to be a teacher and live happily with Rachel in Cambridge.
Finally both of Lary and Helen enjoy
their old age in Shady Hill and become richer and richer with Helen’s company
and they live happily.
4.
Analysis
Satire, as
Hutcheon describes, is didactic and extramural, like a lesson; it has a target
related to something outside the story. Satire has a moral to tell. Satire is a
literary form in and of itself, but it also can qualify, or be qualified by,
other forms
The story is settled in a suburbia.
It capture the ordinary live of an suburban. We find some of the narator
speculations in the story and sometimes occur with some questions form. The
ironies that the hypothesis of the narator have opposite realities that occur
in the story.
We can see some moral value that
exist in a surbubans’ live, and it is criticized by the author by this story.
We also know that less or more the author’s life influence this story.
Example:
·
It
is a similar case of nuclear family in “The worm in the Apple” and in his real life.
·
And also has a similar case when John
cheever’s mother supports his family life with the case in the story that Helen
earn a higher income that his husband can.
A suburb
is a residential area, either
existing as part of a city (as in Australia and New Zealand, and generally in the United
Kingdom) or as a separate residential
community within commuting distance of a city
(as in the United States
and Canada). Some suburbs have a degree of administrative
autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods. Suburbs first emerged on a large scale
in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of improved rail and road transport,
which led to an increase in commuting. Suburbs tend to proliferate around
cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land.
There are two general rules of conduct in suburbia,
writes Baumgartner. First, suburbanites do not publicly take notice of a
neighbor's activities. They make no moral judgments of a member of the
community; in other words, "they mind their own business." Second,
the suburbanite does not make public his or her own private activities. One is
not supposed to be a nuisance to anyone else in the process of ignoring them.
As a result, suburbs are considered peaceful, or boring, places because in an
effort to not enact judgment on each other, households rarely interact with each
other. Baumgartner finds that the primary rule in the moral order of a suburb
is neglect. For example, in his study of a New York City suburb, when a member
of a neighborhood did raise the ire of its inhabitants, neighbors rarely
complained, and indeed would suffer all kinds of disturbances, such as loud
cars or bright lights, for years without protesting to anyone.
The satirical
aspects:
a) We can see some satircal aspects of the boring life of
the suburban beacuse of their indivisualism of over emphasis on the
independence. We can see that John doesn’t give much social interactions inside
this story.
Evidence:
Crutchmans’ family always do their life hapily during the life without any
heavy problem occured.
“The Crutchmans were so very, very happy and so temperate in
all their habits and so pleased...”(Page 1, Pgh. 1)
“They moved happily out to Shady
Hill after the war. Larry had served in the Navy. They had two happy children:
Rachel and Tom”(Page 1, Pgh 3)
“He could have gone into industry
at a higher salary but he liked to teach and Rachel was happy in Cambridge,
where they remained.” (Page 4, Pgh 1)
“...they got richer and richer
and richer and lived happily, happily, happily, happily.”( Page 4, pgh 2)
b) We can also seem John critizes the flat live of suburban
Evidence:
The author give some ironies speculation and hypothesis that have the opposite realities
in the story.
“The
dangers in this situation are well-known. Since Larry did not have to make a
living — since he lacked any incentive — he might take it easy, spend too much
time on the golf links and always have a glass in his hand. Helen would confuse
financial with emotional independence and damage the delicate balances within
their marriage. But Larry seemed to have no nightmares and Helen spread her
income among the charities and lived a comfortable but modest life”(Page 1, pgh
2)
5.
Conclusion
I as the reader of the story can
conclude that John Cheever has so many satirical aspects for the suburban’s
life in this story. First he criticized the over-emphasize on independence of
suburban’ life. Then the second, he criticized the flat life of the suburban’s
life.
6.
References
http://www.wikipedia.com/john_cheever.
http://www.wikipedia. com/suburban.
