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The Enormous Radio
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Enormous Radio, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Appearances, Reality, and Social Respectability
In Cheever’s “The Enormous Radio,” Jim and Irene Westcott are a middle class married whose new radio unexpectedly allows them to eavesdrop on their neighbors’ interactions. The radio reveals that the Westcotts’ seemingly well-to-do neighbors are hiding numerous secrets, and Irene begins to recognize that many people around her, including her friends, wish to preserve their social standing above all else. As a result of this realization, Irene becomes distrustful. Eventually Irene attempts to break…
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Self-Deception and Hypocrisy
In “The Enormous Radio,” Jim and Irene Westcott own a radio that allows them to eavesdrop on their neighbors’ various exploits. The Westcotts themselves seem to be an average family, content and untroubled; as the story continues, however, it becomes evident that Jim and Irene often deceive themselves and each other by pretending that they do not share any of the struggles of their peers. Despite believing, erroneously, that they are better than those around…
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Innocence, Ignorance, and Knowledge
Irene and Jim Westcott are a sheltered couple who have constructed picturesque lives by choosing to remain ignorant of certain harsh truths. A new radio, however, reveals secrets about their neighbors and exposes the Westcotts’ to the stark realities and moral dilemmas of others’—and, eventually, their own—lives. Ultimately, the radio forces the Westcotts to end their constructed sense of innocence: it catalyzes a fight that reveals their own unspoken, terrible secrets. In Cheever’s story…
read analysis of Innocence, Ignorance, and Knowledge
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