John Cheever's: The Enormous Radio

The Enormous Lie Exposed in John Cheever’s: “The Enormous Radio”

The short story “The Enormous Radio” is a story in which John Cheever, the author, uses his own personal experience to show that no one is the “perfect” family. Cheever grew up in a family that had problems with alcoholism, and soon became an alcoholic, just like his dad. According to The Encyclopedia of World Biographies, John Cheever became an alcoholic in his twenties. He did not admit to this serious problem until his family placed him in a rehabilitation center in 1975 after suffering a massive heart attack. In relation to the story, this was a big secret of Cheever’s life that caused many difficulties with his family and his marriage. Set in multiple apartment rooms in the

1940’s in New York, this short story was written in a suspenseful mood.

Cheever uses his own personal experience to show that his main characters, Jim and Irene Westcott, are not the perfect couple that Irene thought. Irene Westcott becomes so obsessed with the hideous radio, which was purchased after the previous radio went bad, that it soon reveals her ugly secrets about herself and her marriage. The new radio would sound the conversations from other apartment rooms into the Westcott’s apartment. This is what made Jim reveal the truth about their marriage. In this story, it seems that the Westcott’s life is innocent and has no problems at all, but the author uses the radio as a symbol that brings out all of the ugly truth in the couple’s life, in comparison to his own experience. In “The Enormous Radio”, Cheever uses symbolism, aggressive dialogue and multiple settings to bring out Irene’s

troubles of herself to reveal the failure of Jim and Irene’s marriage.
“The Enormous Radio” takes place in New York in the 1940’s. The main Characters, Jim and Irene Westcott, are introduced as a successful married couple with two children, who aren’t brought up much throughout the story. The Westcott’s life revolves around listening to broadcast radio together, and when their old radio breaks, Jim has to replace it. He has to replace the old radio with a new expensive radio that is in a “large gumwood cabinet”. Irene hates the radio because it clashes with all of her other furniture. As Irene listens to this radio, she realizes that it is picking up sounds from the elevator and neighboring apartments. This caused the Westcott’s to begin ease dropping on everyone’s daily conversations and arguments. Irene would sit by this radio all day tuning it in to different stations, because each station was a different apartment room. At this point in the story it is clear that Jim and Irene live a quiet, private life. After ease dropping so much, Irene begins to change. She begins to think she is better than everyone surrounding her and judges others for their problems that she is discovering through the radio. As this continues to get worse throughout the story, Jim has finally had enough. Jim finally blows up on Irene and breaks it to her that their life is not perfect. They have multiple problems going on in their marriage, just like their surrounding neighbors.
Cheever uses the radio in this short story to symbolize the distraction it causes in Irene’s life. The radio makes the Westcott’s seem like they are living in two different worlds. While listening to the radio they are living in a “mysterious” world, rather than the real world. Irene spends most of her time in the living room listening to other people’s arguments and conversations through the radio. It seems that Irene is letting the radio take over her life. For example, the Westcott’s had planned to go shopping one day, but Irene decided to go home and privately listen to the radio in her living room (Cheever 4). The radio has become the center of attention to Irene. It is interrupting her “perfect” life. After listening in on the other apartment rooms’ conversations through the radio, Irene now judges everyone that she sees in public. As a symbol, Cheever uses the radio to show how addiction can cause issues with one’s everyday life and family. In comparison to Irene’s addiction to listening to the conversations from the radio, Cheever was addicted to alcohol. With Cheever being an alcoholic, it resulted in him having an affair with another women while married to his wife (“John Cheever”). Cheever uses the radio as a symbol in this story in comparison to his alcoholism, which both result in addiction and failed marriage.
With the use of aggressive dialogue, Cheever shows the tension between the main characters whom are having problems with their marriage, and are not as perfect as they thought.

In “The Enormous Radio”, Jim says to Irene “’Why are you so Christly all of a sudden? What’s turned you overnight into a convent girl?’ (Cheever 6)” This lets the reader get an idea of the tension that Jim is having towards Irene. Jim is feeling this tension because he has realized that his wife does not see all the problems they are having. She believes that they are the perfect family and nothing could go wrong. Jim does not agree with this. After listening in on conversations coming from the radio, Irene’s personality has taken the wrong turn. Cheever is trying to show the reader that Irene’s personality has changed towards everyone ever since the new radio came into the picture. She believes now that she is the only person in her town that is “perfect” and has no trouble at home. When Irene says to Jim “‘and we're not hypocritical or worried about money or dishonest, are we?’”, it proves that Irene still believes that she is better than everyone around her. Cheever uses aggressive dialogue to insure that the reader understands the emotions going on between Irene and Jim Westcott. When Jim finally confronts Irene about their problems, Irene acts as if she is embarrassed. She asks Jim to please stop talking about their problems out loud because she is afraid that the radio will hear them (Cheever

7).
From one apartment room to the next, Cheever uses multiple settings throughout his short story to develop the theme of realism, revealing the failure of Jim and Irene’s marriage. When Irene realized that their new radio was sounding conversations from other apartment rooms she began to ease drop. She became obsessed with the fact that she could listen in on other people’s conversations. Cheever uses multiple apartment rooms as the setting of this short story to bring out the practicality of Jim and Irene’s marriage. When Irene started to hear all of the drama in the other apartments, she began to act like it made her feel better about herself. For example, after listening in to a few different stations, Irene would say “Try something else. See if you can get those people in 18-C” (Cheever 3). She would try to match each argument or problem she heard through the radio to the person that she saw out in public. After hearing about all of these issues that other people had, it made Jim realize that Irene did not want to confess to having their own issues. She wanted to believe that they were better than everyone else, and had no issues at home. Once Jim finally revealed all of their issues to Irene, she was shocked. She never wanted to admit that she could have such horrible problems like the ones she was hearing coming from the radio. The multiple settings in this story helped Cheever show the reader that Irene and Jim are not the “perfect” couple that Irene once thought.
“The Enormous Radio” was written to show that one small adjustment in life can change someone forever. Cheever uses the radio in this short story to show how it symbolizes the distractions that it causes in the Westcott’s life. Not only does he use symbolism to show this, but he also uses very descriptive writing that helps the reader visualize how aggressive the tension is between the two main characters. Cheever’s use of multiple settings helped sort out the theme of realism in this short story. Each different apartment room led Irene and Jim one step closer to identifying that their marriage was a failure. In relation to this story, Cheever had a hard time dealing with addiction in his early ages. He used his personal experience of being an alcoholic to make the theme of “The Enormous Radio”. When Cheever finally admitted to becoming an alcoholic, he became a better person. With that being said, Cheever uses Irene and Jim Westcott to show that this is true. The Westcott’s spent their whole life looking past problems that they did not want to admit. Once hearing the problems of others through the radio, Jim realized that it was time to admit the failure of their marriage to Irene. Moral of the story, do not try to be something that you are not.