The Five-Forty-Eight (Characterization)

The Five-Forty-Eight by John Cheever is a story that shows the relationship between two kinds of people. Miss Dent is Blake’s stalker and a mentally ill and emotionally unstable woman. Blake is a businessman, gets his “manliness” from those who are weak, confident that there will not be any consequences. After Blake hires Miss Dent (when she is trying to overcome her mental illness), he toils with her emotions, and leaves her jobless, and alone. The Five-Forty-Eight reflects the relationship between oppressors and the oppressed, and how sometimes, the oppressed fight back for total revenge. The characterization of Blake clearly shows the unjust treatment of an oppressor.

Blake is introduced as an overconfident powerful man, who already parallels an oppressor. When the reader is introduced to Blake, he is very confident. When he leaves his office, he notices his stalker, and wonders why she is following him, but seems distracted by the recent construction and window displays to think about her long enough to worry. For the moment that he did think about her, he thinks to himself that, “She was not clever. She would be easy to shake” (80). He sees himself as a superior to Miss Dent. Blake thinks that maybe she was “misled, lonely perhaps” (80). This is the first step in oppressing, thinking that one is on a higher level than Ms. Dent. While in the bar that he stops at, Blake tries to remember his stalker’s name-“Miss Dent, Miss Bent, Miss Lent” (80). The characterization of Blake shows how he can live with himself after the way he treats women. To him, people with low self esteem are not people. He dehumanizes them to the point where they are all nameless. Cheever makes a point in general about how people with power abuse it to dehumanize others.

In this story, the oppressed fight back, making a bold statement for the oppressor to see what it felt like. After realizing he has missed his train, Blake tries to catch the local five-forty-eight. Thinking he has lost his stalker, he boards the train, and uses the evening paper to “avoid speculation or remorse about her.” (83) “Mr. Blake”, he hears her voice from above him, and suddenly he remembers her name. Miss Dent. To the reader, Miss Dent is becoming seemingly more dangerous. Blake still thinks he has the power to manipulate her. But it didn’t take long for him to realize that Miss Dent was serious, with a pistol aiming at his direction, she was not afraid to shoot. It is clear that there has been a role reversal. Blake is now the weak one, the one who is being dehumanized and under a strong influence of power. The consequences of Blake’s actions have finally come back to set him straight. Miss Dent, even mentally tormented, finds the strength to stand up to the person who caused her emotional trouble and pain.

Miss Dent’s corrected misconceptions about Blake motivate her to act. When she first met Blake, she imagined his life to be “full of friendships, money, and a large and loving family” (81). However, after Miss Dent sees Blake’s weakness and heartlessness, and once the train stops in Shady Hill, she realizes Blake’s life was not what she had pictured. After having just been held at gunpoint with his face down in the dirt, Blake “got to his feet and picked up his hat from the ground where it had fallen and walked home” (89). Characterizing Blake as a dominant, power abusing person allows the readers to conclude that he represents the oppressors. In the end, the readers saw that the oppressed get revenge, making a bold statement about what happens to those who abuse power.