Swimming in Suburbia
Swimming in Suburbia
“Taken all in all, however, Cheever’s stories can be seen or heard as a desperate complaint: behind the lovely or stylish exteriors of modern American homes and offices, things are not going well at all; in fact, they are often going quite badly” (O’Hara 55). At a time when economic growth was raising the standards of living in America and life was considered much easier for the average working American, John Cheever offered the public a fresh, yet daunting look at his view of society in the 1950’s. Possessing cryptic symbols such as the futuristic radio in The Enormous Radio, many of Cheever’s stories delineated the miserable lifestyle of America in suburbia through these complex symbols, as well as through many “fantastic” elements. As James O’Hara notes above, much of Cheever’s stories were considered a “complaint” and in 1960, at a writer’s conference in San Francisco, Cheever expressed his disgust melodramatically: “having determined the nightmare symbols of our existence, the characters have become debased and life in the United States in 1960 is hell” (O’Hara 56). This malcontent for society I believe serves as the foundation for the genre Cheever depicts in The Enormous Radio, blatantly manifesting at times through hopelessly doomed characters, destined to fail in Cheever’s lackluster suburbia. While the genre of The Enormous Radio contains apparent similarities in its depiction of the hardships that characters experience, there are differences with that of the American short story genre, such as the use of the
“minimalist” (Watson 3) prose often used by American short story authors. In the short story, The Enormous Radio, I believe Cheever portrays the genre as an “artistic opposition,” assuming a poetic
Ruth 2
protest voice to depict the deconstruction of his character’s lives in suburbia. The conventions of this genre, while possessing similarities and differences that constitute a variation of the formulaic genre of the New Yorker, clearly elucidates many aspects of The Enormous Radio, including symbolism to signal misfortune for his characters, the “fantastic” and often impossible elements, and his dreary characters.
The definition of the American short story genre has always been a topic of much debate, but many critics have come, as I have, to see the genre as having a “minimalist” style: “a technique of communicating complex emotional states by setting up artful patterns of simple concrete detail” (Watson 3). As this critic notes, the method of packing metaphorical significance into painfully simple sentences is illustrated as an example in Ernest Hemingway’s short story, Soldier’s Home. “He would not go down to his father’s office. He would miss that one. He wanted his life to go smoothly” (Hemingway 77). Hemingway’s use of this “minimalist” style I believe, has evolved, rather favorably into part of the American short story genre, partly because these terse sentences force the reader to stop and contemplate on what has just been said, as if every sentence has some hidden deeper meaning in it. Cheever on the other hand utilizes a more lyrical style in The Enormous Radio, coined by some as “Cheeveresque” or “Cheevery Country” (O’Hara 132) which differs from my view on the genre of the American short story. Instead of employing the “minimalist” technique, “a Cheever dialogue is unique in that, while it remains true to our realistic ear, it is always heightened beyond realism to a peculiar brand of poetic speech” (O’Hara 135). In backing up O’Hara’s claim in his quote, I found it interesting that a section of The Enormous Radio can be read like a poem:
“The sky was broad
And filled with light.
It was one of those splendid spring evenings
That excite memory and desire,
And the air that touched their hands
Ruth 3
And faces felt soft” (Cheever 233).
The genre Cheever utilizes provides a more aesthetic experience, as opposed to my belief of the American short story genre being restricted to providing only the basics in story content through sentence structure. These two unique styles, while contrasting with each other, are often a technique used by the authors to depict the hardships that many characters face, which is a similar aspect that makes up the genre in both the American short story and The Enormous Radio.
Manifest in many different forms, the theme of hardships within characters has always been a popular idea portrayed in the American short story. Used by authors in a wide variety of short