Reading and Analysis
evilrider9 
shortques-3TheEnormousRadioSlides-24.pptx“The Enormous Radio”
John Cheever
Plot summary
What is this story about?
Who are the protagonists?
Where is the story set (city/location)?
What is the primary conflict in the story? Is there more than one?
Are there any characters who undergo a transformation? What kind of change is this?
What kind of writing style does Cheever use?
What do you think one or two of the themes of this story might be?
Does this story remind you of any other stories we have read this semester – either in terms of characters, plots, themes, etc.?
John Cheever
(1912 – 1982)
American novelist and short story author
One of the foremost literary critics of mid-century American life, and the changing social values of the post-war era
Stories were designed to comment on the difficulties and challenges of contemporary American life
Post-war America
1945 – 1965 (approx.)
A time of tremendous economic growth and broad prosperity
Rapidly expanding middle class
Increasing population (baby boom)
America involved in ideological Cold War struggle – emphasis on capitalism as superior form of social/political organization
The Nuclear Family
Focus of American social life was the nuclear family
Parents, children – no extended family members
The social “ideal” was a single-income family with a husband as the breadwinner and a housewife whose primary responsibility was raising children
Student work
Setting: New York City
Please take a moment and write down three words you associate with New York
Discuss them with the person sitting next to you. Did you identify some of the same terms?
Why do you think Cheever uses New York as a setting for this story?
The Protagonists: Jim and Irene Westcott
“Jim and Irene Westcott were the kind of people who seem to strike that satisfactory average of income, endeavor, and respectability that is reached by the statistical reports in college alumni bulletins. They were the parents of two young children, they had been married nine years, they lived on the twelfth floor of an apartment near Sutton Place, they went to the theatre on average of 10.3 times a year, and they hoped someday to live in Westchester. Irene Westcott was a pleasant, rather plain girl with soft brown hair and a wide, fine forehead upon which nothing at all had been written, and in the cold weather she wore a coat of fitch skins dyed to resemble mink…The Westcotts differed from their friends, their classmates, and their neighbors only in an interest they shared in serious music. They went to a great many concerts…and they spent a good deal of time listening to music on the radio” (246)
“and in the cold weather she wore a coat of fitch skins dyed to resemble mink”
“The Enormous Radio”
“She was struck at once with the physical ugliness of the large gumwood cabinet. Irene was proud of her living room, she had chose its furnishings and colors as carefully as she chose her clothes, and now it seemed to her that the new radio stood among her intimate possessions like an aggressive intruder. She was confounded by the number of dials and switches on the instrument panel…The dials flooded with a malevolent green light” (247)
Partner work
What is wrong with the new radio?
How does it behave in a way that is somewhat unusual?
Make a list of at least five examples you can find in the story
What is significant about these things?
What psychological and emotional effect does the radio have on Irene?
KEY TERM: Eavesdrop – to listen secretly to a conversation not intended for you
How does Cheever use fragmentary dialogue to give the effect of eavesdropping?
Modern conveniences
Notice the contrast between the classical music and the cacophony of household applianes
“the radio was sensitive to electrical currents of all sorts. She began to discern through the Mozart the ringing of telephone bells, the dialing of phones, and the lamentation of a vacuum cleaner. By listening more carefully, she was able to distinguish doorbells, elevator bells, electric razors, and Waring mixers” (248)
“The ringing of telephones and doorbells set in, joined by the rasp of the elevator doors and the whir of cooking appliances” (248)
Class aspirations and family discord
What is the relationship between the class aspirations of the Westcotts and their concerns regarding their personal finances?
What might Cheever be saying about the post-war American fixation on consumer goods as a class marker and its connection to social problems?
Small Group Work
With a group of 3-4 classmates, discuss some of the possible similarities and differences between the radio in this story and modern social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
Hint: How might both of these technologies be said to erode privacy?
How are the photos, etc. that we share online similar to the Westcott’s consumption of music and material goods? In other words, how do we use consumption to identify our class?
Journal Writing
In John Cheever’s story “The Enormous Radio,” he presents an image of American society where a façade of wealth and prosperity hides serious social and personal issues. Despite being, on a per capita basis, the wealthiest nation on earth, the US public still struggles with debt, depression, alcoholism and a number of other serious “first-world problems.” How does Cheever represent these struggles? Do you think his story is effective at drawing a connection between personal and social problems?
