I'M Going to Asia (Cheever)

The story's set in America, in the area of Adirondack mountains. The story begins with the simple enumeration of the main heroes and introduces something to us that is “staged”. Against the background there is news being broadcast and we can see “the announcer, sobbing with emotions” - that's why it's possible to conclude that something dreadful and rather unexpected has happened. Taking into consideration the time it was written, it may be supposed that the action in the story is around such an event, as the attack at Pearl Harbor at the beginning of December. Knowing this, it helps us to comprehend the author's hints about the difference of time – when Bill and Carole go swimming (it'd be pretty cold in water at the beginning of December, wouldn't it?). Also the speech of old Mrs.Towle refers us to the past in some moments.

Through the whole story they play a game “I am going to Asia” and the name of it, not accidentally, is the title of the story. The text itself is very rhythmically arranged
Some people know the rules of the game, others – don't. Bill and Carole give the right answer from the first attempt, while Freddy plays with time, answering this question. As Carole says both Mrs.Towles just “can't go to Asia”. A parallel could be made “I am going to Asia”-”I am going to the war”. It's like lottery – they decide who and when goes to the war.

As for me the most interesting character seems to be Freddy. When I first read the story I somehow considered him to be rather eager to go to the war and to serve the country. But after having reread it for several times I 've come to the conclusion that he is just spreading propaganda in order other people, but not him, go to the very center of the war. His sentences are getting shorter and shorter to the end of the story, one can feel a strong rhythm in them - “I'm not telling her anything that will hurt her. I'm telling her something she ought to know. It isn't going to be like this anymore....” His phrases sound as if he was pronouncing them not in the first time, as if they were learnt by heart.

Mr. and Mrs. Towle – the realist and the daydreamer. Though Mr.Towle gives the right answer to the question of the game, I think he won't go to the war and stay with Mrs.Towle. In the end of the text he appears just once “...slapped at a mosquito on his ankle” and seemed to be left alive by the author just not to leave Mrs.Towle completely alone. Her children will die or have already died at war, because, while knitting the socks for soldiers, she hopes “...this sock isn't going to be too big,” . But despite this, she is still making plans for the future, as if doesn't want to accept the absence of her children, the meaninglessness of her life without them.