In the short story “The Enormous Radio,” John Cheever describes for us what happens when people get addicted to anything, similar to what we saw in Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited. He shows how by obtaining a certain item, people get haunted with its function and can’t control themselves until it starts to affect their own lives. In this story, the abruption of the smooth sailing life of the Westcott family was the enormous radio that Jim bought for his wife Irene. People that are high up on authority are usually well respected and are looked up upon those that are lower than them. The social hierarchy of today’s day and age is confounding, however. The upper class obviously has more authority than the lower classman, but research comes
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One could say that he obviously is criticizing the upper-class society because the scene he depicts is on the upper west side, speaks of an expensive radio, and other type items. However, based on the discussion held above, it can be inferred that he speaks to a global setting of people that stem from the upper class. Meaning, he’s saying that it normally happens to a specific social class but at the same time one shouldn’t think that it doesn’t apply to someone who’s not in that class, but rather should learn from them how not to live your life. An example would be that in the story one sees that the Westcott family lives a fallacy of a life of higher classification because Irene wears a fake looking expensive coat to blend into the people around her. They also hide their identity of liking classical music, which seems ridiculous because they show that they aren’t who they say they are. Cheever is stressing that this story is an example of what happens when you get obsessed with even the most random things. He’s trying to show an example of the lower class society, that not so often does obsession take them over, that this is not how you live life. One cannot put oneself on a pedigree too high or else he will fall and lose everything he
One could say that he obviously is criticizing the upper-class society because the scene he depicts is on the upper west side, speaks of an expensive radio, and other type items. However, based on the discussion held above, it can be inferred that he speaks to a global setting of people that stem from the upper class. Meaning, he’s saying that it normally happens to a specific social class but at the same time one shouldn’t think that it doesn’t apply to someone who’s not in that class, but rather should learn from them how not to live your life. An example would be that in the story one sees that the Westcott family lives a fallacy of a life of higher classification because Irene wears a fake looking expensive coat to blend into the people around her. They also hide their identity of liking classical music, which seems ridiculous because they show that they aren’t who they say they are. Cheever is stressing that this story is an example of what happens when you get obsessed with even the most random things. He’s trying to show an example of the lower class society, that not so often does obsession take them over, that this is not how you live life. One cannot put oneself on a pedigree too high or else he will fall and lose everything he