Author: AlexhaCharles

Alexha Charles

In the short story “The Enormous Radio” by John Cheaver, it focuses on a couple, Jim and Irene, who brought a vintage and daunting radio. This story does indeed have gothic irony due to the fact that a radio comes into Westcotts life. This radio isn’t like ordinary radios and it can listen into other conversations being had by neighbors in their building. At first, Jim and Irene disliked the radio due to them not being able to listen to music but the discussions between neighbors. After hearing the neighbors, Jim and Irene felt a sense of superiority because they never experienced issues that their neighbors are currently going through. However, over time, Irene hears her neighbor being abused by her husband and another neighbor faces issues with hospital bills. When the radio is fixed, all goes back to normal. They can no longer hear the conversation being had by neighbors and the radio becomes a normal radio where it only plays music and weather reports. 

One can say that the story does not have gothic irony because there is not a return to normalcy. The Westcotts relationship was “good, decent, and loving”. Having the radio and overhearing the many conversations being had by neighbors all over the building, made the Westcotts feel as if they were better than others, but they (mainly Irene) started to have trust issues. She doubts her friends and her neighbors. She believes that they are playing a facade to hide what they’re truly going through. After the radio is fixed, Jim and Irene eventually start arguing with one another. Irene becomes worried neighbors will hear and Jim reveals that Irene is not innocent and she has done terrible things. It wouldn’t be considered gothic irony due to the fact that the Westcotts relationship doesn’t return to normal and that they are no different from their neighbors that face personal issues.

ALEXHA CHARLES

Write down the five most important ideas in this chapter. 

1. Landscapes: Smith speaks about wastelands and pitiless nature. (p.5)
2. American Pressure: Smith says that this was frontier experience, solitude violence, absence of “developed society”, along with racial issues. (p.2)
3. Pushing Towards Extremes: As Smith states, “Gothic tends to reinforce culturally prescribed doctrines of morality and propriety”. (p.3)
4. Dark side of Enlightenment: Gothic explores religious profanities, occultism, necromancy, etc. (p.6)
5. Classes: Middle classes displaying violence. Abuse of power from aristocracy, religious tyrants. (p.7)

Alexha Charles

The short stories I enjoyed reading are ‘Young Goodman Brown’ and ‘The Black Cat’. My reason for liking ‘The Black Cat’ is because it shows a story of reflection and premonition from an abusive drunken man who goes through constant rages. He harms the weak which are his wife and cats. There is one particular cat whose white patch of fur symbolizes the gallows which is the man’s fate. That moment where he was caught for killing his wife and realizing the wrongs he has done, it’s too late. The story has some sort of a dark ending but it was enjoyable to read the main protagonist be his own enemy and that his death was shown in multiple ways, by him hanging his own cat, and the second chat which had a shape of the gallows on his fur. 

In the short story ‘Young Goodman Brown’, I enjoyed this story the most because it focused on making deals with the Devil and seeing the truth of people he knows. Goodman realizes that everyone he knows has done shady deals with the Devil as well as witchcraft which sends him to a fit of fear and gloom. He doesn’t know who to trust and because he has been so close with God and telling his wife to pray and not stray from the Lord, he believes he has seen his wife at this ritual and now is distant with her. To further add my reasons for liking this story, I loved that Goodman Brown’s name reflected who he was ‘good man’. He didn’t accept any deals with the Devil and was the only one that wasn’t swayed by the Devil and by the witchcraft that all the townspeople were a part of. He stuck true to God and didn’t accept the staff given to him.