Ignorance is Bliss

Ned begins his adventure slightly buzzed on a warm summer day. He decides that he will make a trek across his neighborhood by swimming through each pool. This journey makes him feel as though he were an explorer discovering a new place and slowly but surely we realize he is discovering something but it isn't about his location. Ned begins to see something a miss when he comes to the Lindley's property. Despite each person he encounters mentioning something to him that doesn't feel quite right he doesn't seem to take notice until the Lindley's. Noticing the over grown lawn and that the horses were no longer there makes him wonder what has happened, where have they gone. Then arriving to the Welcher's he notices their For Sale sign and wonders when this all happened and how he hadn't noticed. He mentions that he doesn't pay attention to bad things in his life and this just becomes more and more apparent the farther his journey takes him. It isn't until Ned reached the Holloran's that we start to realize just what happened to Ned and why him and his wife haven't been seen or heard from in awhile. We learn that they had money trouble, had to sell their house and something happened with the children and yet Ned still remains oblivious to what is happening around him. Even in his own personal life. At the Bisswager's we get a feeling of what kind of people Ned and Lucinda were. Blue blooded high society folks, his comments of on the Bisswager's being a "different set" reminds me of Tom Buchanan view of Jay Gatsby and all other's that came from new money, this idea of aristocracy that the time line of your wealth determines a great deal more about your social standing than the amount of money you have. Ned is confused, at the end of the story Ned is cold and locked out of his home, the doors and windows shut and the inside empty, he looks to the sky to see the winter constellations and realizes that this journey was more than topographic and was a journey of self discovery, of what happened to him, his children and his wife. Is Ned's response to his life's evident collapse understandable? Is it okay to just block out unhappy memories in order to cope with life? Should Ned continue on the path of this delusional reality or should Ned come to realize what happened to him and possibly slip into a deep depression?