The Death of Justina by John Cheever
"The Death of Justina" by John Cheever explores profound themes of mortality and societal denial through the experiences of its protagonist, Moses. The story begins with the unexpected death of Justina, a cousin of Moses's wife, which occurs within the confines of their seemingly idyllic suburban life. This event serves as a catalyst for Moses's introspection, revealing the absurdity and pretense of his surroundings, particularly in how the community is not equipped to handle death. The narrative juxtaposes the trivialities of suburban zoning laws against the weighty reality of mortality, highlighted by a humorous yet dark dream sequence that reflects modern humanity’s struggles with desire and existential understanding.
Cheever utilizes this incident to question how individuals can comprehend love and life when they ignore the inevitability of death. The protagonist's journey leads him to confront the absurdities of his life and the societal norms that dictate behavior, prompting a broader reflection on the human condition in a rapidly changing world. Through satire and poignant imagery, Cheever invites readers to ponder the complexities of existence and the challenges of finding meaning in a seemingly indifferent society. The text ultimately suggests that confronting death may be essential for authentic living and understanding.
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The Death of Justina by John Cheever
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1960 (collected in The Stories of John Cheever, 1978)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
In “The Death of Justina” it is not merely a brush with death (as in “The Country Husband”) but death itself that serves as catalyst not only for a change in the narrator-protagonist’s life but for Cheever’s comic genius as well. “So help me God it gets more and more preposterous, it corresponds less and less to what I remember and what I expect as if the force of life were centrifugal and threw one further and further away from one’s purest memories and ambitions”; the speaker is a version of the figure Cheever imagined in 1959—the man in a quagmire looking up at a tear in the sky—but one whose predicament has somehow become funnier as well as more dire.
If, as the narrator would like to believe, fiction is art, and if art is the triumph over chaos brought about by the exercise of choice, then how is the writer or authorial narrator to continue to effect that triumph in a world in which change occurs too rapidly and in which the basis for making aesthetic as well as moral choices appears to have disappeared? How is one to build Coverly Wapshot’s bridge between “memories and ambitions”?
Aside from the setting (Proxmire Manor) and names (Moses and Justina), “The Death of Justina” exists independently of The Wapshot Scandal in all but two important respects, structure and theme, and specifically in Moses’s wanting to know how, in the world’s most prosperous land, there can be so many disappointed people. “The Death of Justina” provides a possible answer. When his wife’s cousin dies in his home, Moses suddenly learns that his neighborhood and the suburban good life it represents are not zoned for death. As the mayor explains, “The importance of zoning just can’t be overestimated,” and Moses will simply have to wait a few days or weeks until an exemption can be issued and the body can be legally disposed of. When Moses threatens to bury the corpse in his back yard, the mayor—acting illegally—relents.
Matters do not end there, however, for that night Moses has a dream in which a thousand grotesquely garbed shoppers, desexed and penitential, wander around a brilliantly lit supermarket, its windows darkened, the contents of all packages unknown. At the checkout counter, large men tear open the packages, express their disgust, and then push the humiliated shoppers out the door into a sea of tormented souls.
This blackly humorous updating of Dante’s Inferno (c. 1320) manages to create a certain sympathy for those it satirizes and for modern humans’ mistaken efforts to realize their deepest longings. Burying Justina in a cemetery which, like a dump, lies on the town’s outskirts leads Moses to ask, “How can a people who do not mean to understand death hope to understand love, and who will sound the alarm?” Apparently, Moses will. Told by his boss to rewrite a commercial for a product called Elixircol, he first composes a parody, “Only Elixircol can save you.” Then, when threatened with a kind of death—being fired—he copies out the Twenty-third Psalm. In the nightmare world of the supermarket of the soul, the words that Moses chooses, “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” sound both sane and strangely convincing.
Bibliography
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Byrne, Michael D. Dragons and Martinis: The Skewed Realism of John Cheever. Edited by Dale Salwak and Paul David Seldis. San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press, 1993.
Cheever, Susan. Home Before Dark. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
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