The Five-Forty-Eight
by John Cheever


Project by Connie Wu

Science and emotions don’t often mix, but the resulting concoction usually provokes unique streams of thought. In John Cheever’s “The Five-Forty-Eight”, emotions of all sorts certainly run rampant, and the highly structured setting of a train ride provides the perfect premise for a scientifically inspired analysis. To this end, the Distance project takes concepts of physics, specifically special relativity, and applies them to the investigation of the complicated relationship between Cheever’s main characters, Mr. Blake and Miss Dent. The Distance project intends to emphasize Cheever’s reliance on perspective in “The Five-Forty-Eight” to highlight emotional distance and generate character growth for both Mr. Blake and Miss Dent.

When thinking in terms of special relativity, distance takes on a meaning separate from the layman’s understanding. Rather than the space that must be traveled between two points, distance in special relativity is defined as how difficult it is to travel from one point to another in a given time. So, traveling a thousand miles in just two seconds would be considered a rather large distance while traveling one mile over the course of a day would be a rather short distance. Interestingly, this general rule applies snugly to another form of distance – emotional distance. A couple that tries to move along really quickly through a relationship usually don’t have the depth of connection as a long-married couple who have settled into their roles comfortably.

The spacetime part of the Distance project graphs the relationship between Blake and Dent as they move through New York over their 6 month acquaintance in order to investigate their distance in both the physical and emotional sense. Their first meeting in the office serves as the origin, and the trail extends from there, forming an almost linear pattern. The pattern reveals how Cheever intentionally structured the narrative as a crisscross. At the beginning of their association, the timid Miss Dent seeks company and love while the self-centered Blake seeks convenient pleasure with no fear for consequences. As a man in his high social position, he values his illusion of control immensely, even expressly commenting on how uncomfortable he that “had left his coffee ring at the bar, and he was not a man who forgot things. This lapse of memory pained him.” When Miss Dent begins stalking him, he remains calm so long as he believes he holds the tactical high ground in the relationship. At the point of least distance, or where Blake and Dent are emotionally and physically closest (highlighted with a box on the graph), Miss Dent pulls her gun on Blake, and suddenly his power delusions evaporate. Similarly, Miss Dent’s trajectory takes a turn at this moment. From here on, she wields the real clout and forces Blake to listen and obey. At this point, both characters face their fears, hence their emotional closeness; however, the two diverge again from here on. By the end of the story, Miss Dent achieves the confidence she so desires by telling Blake that she is “better than [him]” and that she “can wash [her] hands of all this, because you see there is some kindness, some saneness in me that [she] can find again and use.” Meanwhile, Blake, shaken and weak, must brush off the dirt and stumble home.

Frames of reference, another major principle of relativity, also play a role in Cheever’s story. In physics, switching frames of reference can completely change the observer’s interpretation of events. For example, from the perspective of a boy on a moving train who throws a ball to his sister, the ball moves at around thirty miles per hour. From the perspective of someone watching from the stationary platform though, the ball is moving at closer to a hundred miles per hour, the combination of the train’s speed and the ball’s speed.

Similarly, moving between the perspectives of Blake and Miss Dent offers very different interpretations on the events in the story. In the Relativity part of the project, I arranged the selected excerpts according to whose perspective Cheever was representing with the same critical event from the spacetime chart as an anchor. Two unique stories emerge. On Miss Dent’s side, a picture of a mad woman, in both senses of the word, develops. Her anger seems righteous, especially as she muses, “if there are devils in the world, if there are people in the world who represent evil, is it our duty to exterminate them? I know that you [Blake] always prey on weak people.” The madness, however, never subsides. The overwhelming repetitive language and references to hospital stays overshadow Miss Dent’s cause; she is, in fact, crazy. On the other hand, from Blake’s side, we perceive a more even-keeled and justifiably upset portrait of Miss Dent. Jilted in love and jobless, her crusade to stalk Blake and ultimately scare him, not murder him, takes on a reasonable, if cold-hearted, air. Further vindicating Miss Dent’s reaction, Blake’s crime and guilt appear as major transgressions to the reader from this perspective, and even Blake himself knows it: upon seeing Miss Dent, he feels “that faint guilt and bewilderment we experience when we bypass some old friend or classmate who seems threadbare, or sick, or miserable in some other way.” Thus, should we examine the critical point of least distance with these dual interpretations in mind, Miss Dent takes on the paradoxical position of a woman performing an immoral, insane act for the sake of a moral, reasonable cause while Blake simultaneously exists as both victim and villain. Basically, it all depends on whose side you’re on.

Though these abstractions are by no means scientifically rigorous, placing Cheever’s story in this new context poses important questions about the relationship between Blake and Miss Dent. The Distance project reveals the intricately women threads of Cheever’s map of both the windy path to Shady Hill and the twisted ties between two flawed characters.