Paradise In Decay-A Thematic Study On John Cheever's Oh What A Paradise It Seems

John William Cheever,with a long and successful literary career over fifty years span,has been indisputably considered one of the most significant twentieth-century American writers,whose works are remarkable in many ways.Most of his stories are mainly set in New England background and focus on the traditions and values,people's manners and mores,and the psychic unease in the suburbia,which earned him the sobriquet “the Chekhov of the exurbs”.Published in March 1982 shortly before his death,Oh What a Paradise It Seems is a swan-song of Cheever well-tuned by his perfectly pleasurable craft.This novel,with its presentation of the distressed common people and their futile struggle,corrupt officials and their malpractice,the irretrievable decline of American society,in various aspects,can be regarded as the great document of American life in the twilight of the twentieth century.All these have impressed the readers with the profound themes of the nostalgic memory of the past,the deterioration and degradation of the society,and the futile struggling for paradise.So rather than judging the story in the light of current public opinion — the ecological crises,this paper conducts a thematic study on the novel from the sociological perspective because as people are the products of a particular time and place,we can never fully comprehend a work without understanding of the social forces that shaped the themes of the author as well as what he did and thought.In this sense,the thematic study on the novel,which is assuredly of an ideological piece,has profound and realistic value on a better understanding of society and humanity in America.Besides introduction and conclusion,this paper consists of three chapters.Chapter One examines the idyllic natural surroundings and upward social milieu of America in old days.Chapter Two illustrates the authentic vanishment of paradise in terms of polluted natural environment,deteriorated interpersonal relations and distressed common people.Chapter Three expounds people's futile seeking for paradise,such as despondent individual's fruitless pursuit of love,righteous men's unsuccessful saving to environment and miserable families' ineffective struggle for survival.Conclusion is drawn that voiced by Jefferson two hundred years ago,the beautiful American dream,a vision no doubt admirable,is now relentlessly broken up in the present paradise in decay.People's struggle to fulfill that dream is destined to be a long,tough,futile,and ultimately unattainable trip,as long as the law of EAT OR EATEN holds sway in capitalistic America.