John Cheever’s Satirical Tone in “The Wrysons”

The American literature of the post-war period can be characterized by the authors’ concentrating on the depiction of the peculiarities of the usual Americans’ lives with references to their social position and the role of politics in their everyday activities. In his short stories, John Cheever often focuses on representing the life of the Americans who live their ordinary lives in the suburbs. How do these people find themselves in the rapidly changing world? What aspects make the basics of their everyday life? At first sight, many American authors concentrated on describing these elements in their works. However, John Cheever’s short stories which were written in the 1950s are rather unique in their extreme satirical tone presented by the author in to accentuate the people’s intentions to preserve their comfortable life and good public appearance. Thus, “The Wrysons” is the most vivid example of John Cheever’s representation of his vision of the public’s attitude to their good appearance or even oddness with the help of the satirical characterization.