Story #2 "The Enormous radio" by John Cheever
Below you will find the reactions of the students from different countries on the story "The Enormous radio". Read them and write your own response to what you have understood from the story.
Bakir: I think that the text "the Enormous radio" can be compared with todays television, internet or any other digital stuff because the main theme of the text is based on a new technology's drawbacks.The family has been in trouble with the radio by its effects on Irene with her fears, deppression and so on. That is because of the new radio.
Also there can be seen voyeurism in the text in that she cannot control herself without listening to the radio and be aware of their neighbours. So, i want to empasize that there are a lot of similiraties between todays problems and the enormous radio. For example, the internet brings addiction to itself as we can also see the same situation in the text. Due to some uncontrolled usage of technology we may encounter with some tragical divorces,ruin of relationships with our neighbours and even ruin of family.
Besides, we are also able to peep some people's lifes by television as we mentioned in the class as "The reality tv", that comes with television and the same thing happened in the enormous radio.Lastly, it can be irrelevant, but there have been produced lots of series nowadays and they are also addictive for some part of the society.Thus, they can have huge harmful effects on the individuals,families,children and so on. So, as we can see in the text it can destroy people's lifes.In my opinion, contemporary issues about all these things are really more important than the time of the enormous radio or the time that there was just a radio.
Ahmed: In Enormous Radio John Cheever reveals the effect of a radio on individual behaviors of persons and relationship between people with a very different perspective. Actually, at the outset it seems to be like an average story about which we can not discuss very much. However, while I was reading the last part of the story, I realized that writer has a different approach to Irene. In the beginning of the story Irene seems to be like an ordinary wife and mother who has not an issue about life. Afterward, when the radio comes, her life begins to change. She becomes desperate because people's lives which she listens by the radio affects her too much. As a reader I think that the story is all about a radio and a woman till the speech of Jim at the end of the story and after that I start to think writer wants to emphasize that this radio reveals Irene's problems ,that she doesn't concern, by other people's problems. Somewhere inside of her there are some bad memories which are restrained but with the help of the radio she can act out her pains.
Denis: When I finish the story "the Enormous Radio" the first idea that came to my mind is if the radio or our curiosity is more enormous. Well I actually think it's our problem. We can't except media to make the right choice while you can not to. We have to confess, we really enjoy watching other people's lives. I'm not saying that we all adore "Big Brother", but in a point each one of us have an idea about private lives of the celebrities we love. As a consequence I keep telling myself to not to criticize "the media", before looking in to the mirror.
Derek: I want to write about the effects of the enormous radio on Irene Wescott's character and how it changed her personality listening to other people's lives.
Irene Wescott seems to have a perfect life and the only difference she has from her neighbours is spending a lot of time listening to music on the radio with her husband.She is a pleasant woman.When their radio stops working Jim,her husband,buys her a new one and to her surprise she discovers that this new radio picks up noises from other apartments in her neighbourhood.First she is reasonable and wants the radio fixed.But as time goes by,she starts being addicted to other people's lives.She starts cutting her meetings with friends short to come home and listen to the radio.In a way I think she realizes this is wrong because she hides it from the maid but she is so intriuged that after a while she spends all her day listening to lives of others.While the problems of other people make her a melancholic unhappy person she can't stop herself from turning the radio on.The addictive side of her personality takes over and I think the climax of the story is when she want her husband to stop Mr. Osborn beating her wife. In a way she has lost the sense of privacy and because she's been listening to their fight all day she thinks she has the right to intrude their lives.She doesn't realise that it's no different than looking inside from people's windows as Jim tells her.She becomes so depressed in the end and gets in a big fight with Jim,in which she tells him to stop, ''They'll hear us!'' She has so lost the sense of privacy that she thinks what would happen if other people heard them fighting in their own home.She thinks this way because her opinion on other people changed when hearing their private lives. *Example from the text: . ''And some woman in this building is having and affair with the handyman- with that hideous handyman. It’s too disgusting. And Mrs. Melville has heart trouble, and Mr. Hendricks is going to lose his job in April and Mrs. Hendricks is horrid about the whole thing and that girl that plays the “Missouri Waltz” is a whore, a common whore, and the elevator man has tuberculosis and Mr. Osborn has been beating his wife.”
So she doesn't want somebody to say about her ''Irene had a big fight with her husband.''And she is too tired to fight with her husband because she's been listening to other people's quarrels all day.
In the end the radio gets fixed and she has to face her problems instead of getting involved with other people's problems and also she has to face the problems of the world. (the fire,railroad disaster etc.)
The main themes of this story are,in my opinion, addiction,curiosity of other people's lives and privacy.
Sami: The Radio is expected to bring happiness to Irene because she likes listening to the music, but instead, the radio back-fires and causes her to become a character who is obsessed with neighbor’s problems and paranoid due to the its capabilities causing others to over-listen to herself. So there is a transformation of Irene and the radio seems so ultimate to her that despite what she overhears from it causes the change, she doesn’t stop and eventually became sad. I think that what Irene does with the radio is an example of, as Berke Doganoglu stated, privacy violation (the very significant point is beginning of page 7) and also “voyeurism”. In addition, there is an obvious conflict between right and wrong. Explaining more, Irene wants to help others because of their variable problems (Mrs. Melville's heart troubles, Mr. Hendricks's losing jobs), but at the same time she breaks neighbors privacy. So there is a paradox here, because her action is wrong but the intention
Below you will find the reactions of the students from different countries on the story "The Enormous radio". Read them and write your own response to what you have understood from the story.
Bakir: I think that the text "the Enormous radio" can be compared with todays television, internet or any other digital stuff because the main theme of the text is based on a new technology's drawbacks.The family has been in trouble with the radio by its effects on Irene with her fears, deppression and so on. That is because of the new radio.
Also there can be seen voyeurism in the text in that she cannot control herself without listening to the radio and be aware of their neighbours. So, i want to empasize that there are a lot of similiraties between todays problems and the enormous radio. For example, the internet brings addiction to itself as we can also see the same situation in the text. Due to some uncontrolled usage of technology we may encounter with some tragical divorces,ruin of relationships with our neighbours and even ruin of family.
Besides, we are also able to peep some people's lifes by television as we mentioned in the class as "The reality tv", that comes with television and the same thing happened in the enormous radio.Lastly, it can be irrelevant, but there have been produced lots of series nowadays and they are also addictive for some part of the society.Thus, they can have huge harmful effects on the individuals,families,children and so on. So, as we can see in the text it can destroy people's lifes.In my opinion, contemporary issues about all these things are really more important than the time of the enormous radio or the time that there was just a radio.
Ahmed: In Enormous Radio John Cheever reveals the effect of a radio on individual behaviors of persons and relationship between people with a very different perspective. Actually, at the outset it seems to be like an average story about which we can not discuss very much. However, while I was reading the last part of the story, I realized that writer has a different approach to Irene. In the beginning of the story Irene seems to be like an ordinary wife and mother who has not an issue about life. Afterward, when the radio comes, her life begins to change. She becomes desperate because people's lives which she listens by the radio affects her too much. As a reader I think that the story is all about a radio and a woman till the speech of Jim at the end of the story and after that I start to think writer wants to emphasize that this radio reveals Irene's problems ,that she doesn't concern, by other people's problems. Somewhere inside of her there are some bad memories which are restrained but with the help of the radio she can act out her pains.
Denis: When I finish the story "the Enormous Radio" the first idea that came to my mind is if the radio or our curiosity is more enormous. Well I actually think it's our problem. We can't except media to make the right choice while you can not to. We have to confess, we really enjoy watching other people's lives. I'm not saying that we all adore "Big Brother", but in a point each one of us have an idea about private lives of the celebrities we love. As a consequence I keep telling myself to not to criticize "the media", before looking in to the mirror.
Derek: I want to write about the effects of the enormous radio on Irene Wescott's character and how it changed her personality listening to other people's lives.
Irene Wescott seems to have a perfect life and the only difference she has from her neighbours is spending a lot of time listening to music on the radio with her husband.She is a pleasant woman.When their radio stops working Jim,her husband,buys her a new one and to her surprise she discovers that this new radio picks up noises from other apartments in her neighbourhood.First she is reasonable and wants the radio fixed.But as time goes by,she starts being addicted to other people's lives.She starts cutting her meetings with friends short to come home and listen to the radio.In a way I think she realizes this is wrong because she hides it from the maid but she is so intriuged that after a while she spends all her day listening to lives of others.While the problems of other people make her a melancholic unhappy person she can't stop herself from turning the radio on.The addictive side of her personality takes over and I think the climax of the story is when she want her husband to stop Mr. Osborn beating her wife. In a way she has lost the sense of privacy and because she's been listening to their fight all day she thinks she has the right to intrude their lives.She doesn't realise that it's no different than looking inside from people's windows as Jim tells her.She becomes so depressed in the end and gets in a big fight with Jim,in which she tells him to stop, ''They'll hear us!'' She has so lost the sense of privacy that she thinks what would happen if other people heard them fighting in their own home.She thinks this way because her opinion on other people changed when hearing their private lives. *Example from the text: . ''And some woman in this building is having and affair with the handyman- with that hideous handyman. It’s too disgusting. And Mrs. Melville has heart trouble, and Mr. Hendricks is going to lose his job in April and Mrs. Hendricks is horrid about the whole thing and that girl that plays the “Missouri Waltz” is a whore, a common whore, and the elevator man has tuberculosis and Mr. Osborn has been beating his wife.”
So she doesn't want somebody to say about her ''Irene had a big fight with her husband.''And she is too tired to fight with her husband because she's been listening to other people's quarrels all day.
In the end the radio gets fixed and she has to face her problems instead of getting involved with other people's problems and also she has to face the problems of the world. (the fire,railroad disaster etc.)
The main themes of this story are,in my opinion, addiction,curiosity of other people's lives and privacy.
Sami: The Radio is expected to bring happiness to Irene because she likes listening to the music, but instead, the radio back-fires and causes her to become a character who is obsessed with neighbor’s problems and paranoid due to the its capabilities causing others to over-listen to herself. So there is a transformation of Irene and the radio seems so ultimate to her that despite what she overhears from it causes the change, she doesn’t stop and eventually became sad. I think that what Irene does with the radio is an example of, as Berke Doganoglu stated, privacy violation (the very significant point is beginning of page 7) and also “voyeurism”. In addition, there is an obvious conflict between right and wrong. Explaining more, Irene wants to help others because of their variable problems (Mrs. Melville's heart troubles, Mr. Hendricks's losing jobs), but at the same time she breaks neighbors privacy. So there is a paradox here, because her action is wrong but the intention
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