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Weakness and Greatness in Literature: The Enormous Radio by John Cheever

Decent Essays

“Weakness and Greatness” Tragedy has a negative meaning. When we hear “tragedy,” we always link it to car accidents, people dying from crashes, or unfortunate aspect of disasters. A tragedy maybe reflects on both a person’s weakness and greatness, but it tends to emphasize on their problems within one’s self and with other people. It can also review the character’s personal qualities and moral standards through different circumstances. According to the Greek Tragedy, a tragedy never creates only downfall but brought by one’s own hand. In a tragedy, there is always a lesson to be learned despite the disastrous event has an unpleasant but meaningful ending. In a tragic literature, the protagonist tends to create their own tragic flaws resulting in different consequences. In “The Enormous Radio”, John Cheever uses moral and personality degeneration to foreshadow Irene’s changes. On the other hand, in “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner uses the changing of values and social experience to explain Emily’s tragic circumstances. Irene and Emily are lived in different social class. Irene Westcott and her husband, Jim Westcott are a middle class family who earn average income. They live “on the twelfth floor of an apartment house near Sutton Place” and “hope someday to live in Westchester”; they have pride. In contrast, Emily Geierson has a “big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies.” Emily is a wealth woman

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