Author: Bazil Shan

The short story “The Enormous Radio” by John Cheever has many traits being gothic in nature. The story is about Jim and Irene Westcott who replace their broken-down radio with a new radio. This new radio can play music as well as play other people’s conversations. The story starts to show gothic elements such as gothic emotions and gothic hallmarks like pushing the limit. This is prevalent when the couple repeatedly uses the radio. As we read on we can start to notice that Irene’s perception of her relationship with John starts to be altered by the radio. This leads to her becoming more aggressive towards John and this, in turn, caused John to go towards the same path bringing up Irene’s past. By the end of the story, we see that Irene has trust issues and judges everyone.

One reason why the short story “The Enormous Radio” by John Cheever could not be gothic is because of the setting. The setting takes place in John’s and Irene’s house where there is no gothic style setting. Gothic style settings usually portray dark themes like crypts, churches, graves, underground, basements, attics, forests, darkness or dark spaces, bleak or stormy settings. This story has no substantial setting like those and is just a regular house. There is also a lack of return of normalcy. In the end, we see that Irene still portrays emotions such as trust issues and loses herself to her paranoia.

Extreme cruelty, degradation, and fear (Middle of page 5)

Good vs evil (Top of page 6)

Taboos of religious profanity, demonism, and necromancy. (Middle of page 6)

The setting is an old dark place with secret passages and holds mystery. ( Middle of page 7)

The importance of emotions such as terror is needed to set the correct mood.(page 8)

My favorite story so far would have to be “A Story Told to Me by a Friend” by Lydia Davis. I enjoyed this story for being short but at the same time, it was very captivating. I like the story because two people who never even met each other became friends and later on fell in love with each other. I can relate to this story because I have been in a situation where I have met people at random that have become some of my closest friends. As I continued to read the story I was upset about how the neighbor traveled to see his friend but was met with no one showing up to the airport or hearing from his friend. When the neighbor found out what had happened to his friend, the person with who he had fallen in love, I also was upset with what had happened. The ending to their story was just so devastating. How the friend’s neighbor met the person he thought to be his companion for life was dead and the first time they were face to face with each other was inside of the morgue. This story was so well developed that whilst reading you’re on this rollercoaster of emotions always left wanting more. Within the story itself, you feel yourself become a part of the story creating a bond between you and the character as if you were a part of the story itself. While reading, I found myself sympathizing with the main character and found myself wanting to comfort him before I realized it was just a story. That moment when you’re reading a short story like this and you forget that you’re actually reading, your mind kind of just takes over using the plot and imagery within the story to bring it to life and envelop you completely.