Freestyle Reading Story "The Five-Forty Eight"

I must admit, it wasn't so much the story that caught my attention as the biography on the author, John Cheever. What an interesting man! Anyway, after getting my attention, I had to read the story to see if his seemingly troubled soul came to light in his story-it did!

The thing that stood out to me over and over was his character, Blake, seeming to be obsessed with everything around him being beneath him, that he was so much better than everyone else. "He had spent a lot of time in the sloppy rented house where the Watkinses lived" (Cheever 320). He has observances throughout the story of the city's slums, the way the other people are dressed shabbily in comparison to him. He seemed to hold himself in higher esteem than every other character in the story. All the while it was he who seemed to be lacking in character. He used Miss Dent, he was less than nice to his wife and had no respect for any of his neighbors because of their "shortcomings" in his eyes.

I was surprised a little in the story by Miss Dent. At first I thought her "illness" would be a rather obvious-a pregnancy. However, as her character unfolded, you come to realize she suffers from mental problems. I found it interesting that she only wanted to torture Blake a little for her own enjoyment, and closure. The fact that she didn't kill him was intriuging. Why didn't she kill him? Maybe making him get down in the dirt on his face was symbolic to her in some way?