Lifeguard by John Updike
"Lifeguard" by John Updike is a reflective short story centered around a summer lifeguard who contemplates life and purpose while observing beachgoers. Set against the backdrop of a sunlit beach, the lifeguard, a divinity student transformed by the season, grapples with the dichotomy of spiritual and physical desires. He views the beach as a diverse microcosm of society, from the elderly to young families, and muses on the nature of love, beauty, and redemption. Despite his pride in his appearance and role, he expresses a sense of disillusionment regarding the lack of church attendance, suggesting a shift in how people seek spirituality. The lifeguard perceives the ocean as a metaphor for life's struggles, where one can find salvation amid despair. Throughout his reflections, he imagines a kind of paradise and contemplates the eternal roles of women, all while maintaining his post, ready to respond to any cries for help. The story invites readers to explore themes of existence, community, and the complexities of human experience.
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Lifeguard by John Updike
First published: 1961
Type of plot: Impressionistic
Time of work: The early 1960's
Locale: An American beach
Principal Characters:
The lifeguard , the narrator and a seminarianThe crowd at the beach
The Story
No action takes place in this short story, only the musings of a divinity student pondering the purpose of life while gazing on swimmers and sun worshipers at the beach. A summer lifeguard, he is proud of his tanned, "edible" body. Transformed from the pallid seminarian who for the past nine months has pored confusedly over "handbooks of liturgy and histories of dogma," he mounts his white wooden throne (with a red cross painted on the back) as though he were climbing into "a vestment."
There is no contradiction, the lifeguard asserts, between the desires of the spirit and those of the flesh. To shine in the sun is man's goal. Love is like the ministry, the lifeguard ruminates, like being rescued. Beauty is personified in the curvature of a nymph's spine, the "arabesque" between back and buttocks.
Sunday mornings on the beach depress the young lifeguard because so few people are in church. No longer do the masses have a palpable terror of the unknown; people "seek God in flowers and good deeds." The sea seems more a "misty old gentleman" than an ominous "divine metaphor." However, it has meaning for the lifeguard. In the water, he believes, "we struggle and thrash and drown; we succumb, even in despair, and float, and are saved."
The day unfolds like a backward cinema. First come the elderly, who "have lost the gift of sleep." The women smile and search for shells; their mates, whose "withered white legs" support "brazen barrel chests, absurdly potent," swim parallel to the shore at a depth "no greater than their height." Next come middle-aged couples burdened with "odious" children and aluminum chairs. Bored women gossip and smoke incessantly. Finally come young people, maidens and boys, infants in arms and toddlers "who gobble the sand like sugar" and "wade unafraid into the surf."
Assaying this immense "clot" swarming around him, the lifeguard believes them unworthy of redemption. They are "Protestantism's errant herd," a "plague" deserving of oblivion. He is different, both a seducer and a savior, capable of providing rapture and grace. Absurdly, he speculates whether women will be eternalized "as maiden, matron and crone" and "what will they do [in Paradise] without children to watch or gossip to exchange."
On Sunday afternoon, the lifeguard experiences an Edenic vision of the beach, cast back in time just prior to "the gesture that split the firmament." A revelation comes to him, a commandment to be joyful, to "romp; eat the froth; be children." Atop his station, alertly awaiting his calling, the lifeguard listens for a cry for help. So far, he has not heard one.
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed. John Updike: Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Boswell, Marshall. John Updike's Rabbit Tetralogy: Mastered Irony in Motion. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000.
Greiner, Donald. John Updike's Novels. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1984.
Luscher, Robert M. John Updike: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993.
Miller, D. Quentin. John Updike and the Cold War: Drawing the Iron Curtain. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001.
Newman, Judie. John Updike. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.
Schiff, James A. John Updike Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1998.
Updike, John. Self-Consciousness: Memoirs. New York: Knopf, 1989.
Uphaus, Suzanne Henning. John Updike. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980.