Cycles

"That afternoon was a continuous cycle of movement. There was a single file to the left of the slope, holding the frayed rope and breaking from it, one by one, at the crown of the hill to choose their way down, going again and again over the same surface, like people who, having lost a ring or a key on the beach, search again and again in the same sand."

This short passage seems to be a metaphor for not only the Hartley's marital problems but perhaps for broken relationships in general. According to Mrs. Hartley's emotional outburst earlier in the story, the couple have already separated once and their current attempt to reconcile is not going well. Her reiterated question "Why do we have to come back?" is a foreshadowing of the ski slope scene, the "continuous cycle of movement" that characterizes these lives, from the mundane to the intimate. Instead of simply admitting that what they previously had is lost, they "search again and again in the same sand," spinning out the same cyclical story, coming back around to the same obstacles, breaking and coming together again at the same places, creating a revolving wheel of dysfunction. Nothing is ever healed or solved or changed in any way. The fact that their daughter's neck is broken against an actual wheel seems heavily symbolic of this.

Discussion Question: What solution do you think that Cheever is proposing for a disintegrating relationship, if any? That is, what the Hartleys are doing to repair themselves- revisiting people and places that had made them happy in the past- is obviously not working. What do you think he's saying they should have done?