Psychic Discordancy from Voices on a Radio

This article offers a Self-Psychological commentary on American writer John Cheever’s “The Enormous Radio’”, a short story considered to be one of his best artistic expressions, reflecting his own fears of fragmentation in relation to his use of alcohol to address his fragile self-esteem and troubled marriage. Cheever’s short story depicts a marriage falling apart due to a newly bought radio that picks up and transmits the discordant voices of neighbors whose overheard conversations interfere with the main characters’ psychic well-being. Campbell’s interpretation of the short story illustrates how psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut applied theoretical aspects of Self Psychology to literary genres in a manner consistent with the clinical expertise that Kohut demonstrated when training clinicians during his adolescent case conferences known as the Kohut Seminars. A narrative summary of the short story is followed by a discussion of the protagonists’ “organized experience,” their use of music as a selfobject, and their “repetitive and generative” transferences. Early and more recent developments in Self Psychology are employed to address the tensions that threaten the couple’s marriage.