The story “The Enormous Radio” by John Cheever can be considered gothic for many reasons. This story has many gothic actions. For example, it includes acting irrational when Irene chooses to continue to listen in on peoples conversations even though it’s causing her to become in sort “crazy” and is morally wrong. This can also be considered dwelling in negativity because Irene keeps on listening to the radio even though it is just arguments between couples and eventually puts a strain on her marraige to Jim. Gothic emotions are also shown in this story such as cruelty, violence, and shock. These emotions are shown, for example, when Irene hears the couple that is arguing and hears the husband hutting his wife. Also in the end when Jim and Irene are arguing and Jim talks about Irene having an abortion and acting like she didn’t care. That would be considered cruel and shocking. At the end of the story we have a return to normalcy when Irene and Jim began to argue and this is also very ironic because througout the story Irene listens in on all these other couples arguing and thinks her marriage is perfect but in the end her marriage is shown to not be perfect at all and she has many of the issues these other people had.

“The Enormous Radio” can also be considered not gothic. One reason i would say this story can be considered not gothic is because of the setting. A story that is gothic is usually set somewhere more eerie or sinsiter like old houses, castles, and dark spaces. But this story is set in a normal apartment building that has nothing uncanny about it. It is a normal building full of families and couples.