The Role of Themes in Bret Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and John Cheever’s “The Swimmer”

Abstract

This study briefly examines the importance of interpreting themes in literature. The discussion of themes will be limited to Bret Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and John Cheever’s “The Swimmer.” On the one hand, the study focuses on the themes of redemption, sin, and sense of responsibility in Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp.” On the other hand it focuses on the themes of passage of time, social class, and delusion in John Cheever’s “The Swimmer.” In the first place, the study will introduces the significance of interpreting literary themes and how they are connected with the authorial fictional or non-fictional styles. The significance of interpreting of literary themes, consequently, unravels the necessity of exploring the text’s implied meanings and ideas which reflect the authors’ obsession with depicting reality as it is via precise narrative descriptions. The study’s methodology will be a textual-contextual analysis of the selected work’s themes to provide the reader’s with obtrusive example of how themes play a crucial role in identifying the critical nature of literature as a whole.