Symbolism In The Enormous Radio By John Cheever

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At the start of World War II, millions of men and women in United States entered military service and built a phenomenal economic growth. When the war ended and America entered the postwar period, this was also seen as a golden era; however, during this time, there were also a number of problems that started to emerge in the social value and moral code. In the story “The Enormous Radio”, John Cheever not only uses metaphor to explore class aspirations, public social phenomena and private sordid life in the postwar era, but also uses the symbolism of the radio to illustrate the deformed humanity and moral failing. There are some similarities to Cheever’s career in the story “The Enormous Radio”. For example, they both feature tenuous marriages. …show more content…

The Westcotts, who “[have] satisfactory average of income, endeavor, and respectability that is reached by the statistical reports”, “have two young children” and “go to the theatre on an average of 10.3 times a year” (Cheever, 246) are an allusion to the postwar nuclear family ideal that has a decent and wealthy life. Moreover, “Irene is proud of her living room, she chooses its furnishings and colors as carefully as she chooses her clothes” and describes the radio as an ugly “gumwood cabinet” (Cheever, 247) insinuating that the radio does not fit with the living room. This illustrates that the Westcotts’ living room looks gorgeous and they look like they are living a decent, respectable, and wealthy life that others …show more content…

Cheever uses metaphor to reveal the private sordid life and empty materialism of the Westcott. The eavesdropped conversations from the radio reveal that “life is too terrible, too sordid and awful” (Cheever, 252). There is abuse, stealing, and financial trouble in real private dark life. From the radio, a husband who is one of the Westcotts’ neighbor is beating his wife, and there are the sounds of “screams, obscenities, and thuds” (Cheever, 252) from their apartment. Irene pretends to have a decent life, even though she “stole her mother’s jewelry before they probated her will” and has caused financial trouble in her family due to her conspicuous consumption, such as the extravagance purchase and repair cost of the radio. The electronic devices such as “doorbells, elevator bell, electric razors, and Waring mixers” and “there is nothing about the dinner to hold Irene’s interest, so her attention wanders from the food to the deposits of silver polish” (Cheever, 248) shows Irene’s empty materialism which causes her to think that those things represent her

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