Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 4 - The Ethics of Ageing in Frank Perry’s The Swimmer

  • from Part I - Ageing and the Good Life
  • Edited by C. S. Wareham, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing
    Published online:
    23 August 2022
    Print publication:
    04 August 2022, pp 54-65

  • Summary

    In this essay I explore Frank Perry's film The Swimmer (1968), which is based on John Cheever's 1964 story of the same name. The film, I suggest, is a profound exploration of middle age. Ned Merrill, the central character of the film, is in a state of crisis brought on by the way in which – itself typical of middle age – his past is catching up with him. I explore his flight from self-knowledge, his desire to hang on to the past and his efforts to reinterpret his past according to the view of himself that he would like to have. I suggest that he is lost in the time of his life and that this dream-like dislocation of time is central to any understanding of the ethics of middle age.