John Cheever - The Death of Justina

John Cheever The Death of Justina
Page: 543

“When I abstain from sin it is more often a fear of scandal than a private resolve to improve on the purity of my heart, but here was a call for abstinence without the worldly enforcement of society, and death is not the threat that scandal is.”

It is well known that Cheever often wrote about suburbia, and it is my opinion that in this quote he captures the force behind “suburbia” utterly. It is the idea that you do good not because it is good, but because of what the neighbors would say if you did not do good. He is more willing to sacrifice something to conform to society than for health reasons because death is nothing next to a scandal.

John Cheever The Death of Justina
Page: 548

“It’s just that it happened in the wrong zone and if I make an exception for you I’ll have to make an exception for everyone, and this kind of morbidity, when it gets out of hand, can be very depressing. People don’t like to live in a neighborhood where this sort of thing goes on all the time.”

This quote is the mayor’s argument against “allowing” Justina to have died. Zoning regulations prevented funeral parlors from opening, anything from being buried, and death. The idea of zoning against death clearly is a satirist take of suburban lifestyles. The struggle to obtain a zoning exception after Justina’s death is takes the spoof on step farther mocking the over the top bureaucratic ways of small towns and neighborhoods.