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Lucie Mullen
Joan Kaylan-Curtis
UNIV 111
22 October 2014
Privacy: How Much Is Too Much?
In today’s society the concept of privacy is as ever changing as the medium
threatening it- social media. Privacy can be seen as introversive and socially limiting, but
it can also make one more powerful in certain aspects. In this essay the notion that
privacy is powerful will be questioned and examined through the following texts; The
Circle by Dave Eggers, “The Enormous Radio” by John Cheever and “Why Women
Aren’t Welcome on the Internet” by Amanda Hess. The Circle’s main idea is to show the
negatives of getting consumed by social media while “The Enormous Radio’s” main idea
is to show the negatives of getting consumed by other’s private lives and “Why Women
Aren’t Welcome on the Internet’s” main idea is to serve as a call to action against private
threats on the Internet. Although Cheever and Eggers covered the topic of privacy in
interesting ways, their texts have undertones of sexism cannot make their texts valid
representations of today’s society while Hess’s article contradicts all of Cheever and
Egger’s misconstrued notions that women tend to be “uncontrollable”.
The novel The Circle, written by Dave Eggers, discusses the power of social
media set in a dystopian society seemingly not so far off from today. The protagonist,
Mae Holland, starts working for an Internet company called “The Circle”. The Circle has
a monopolized hold on the Internet, becoming more influential than any other social
networking site in the world. Mae first gets a desk job but quickly climbs the career
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ladder and eventually reaches one of the most coveted job positions, almost directly
under the three men who run the company. These men choose Mae to be their guinea pig
for The Circle’s new inventions. Most importantly, Mae is the first to test-run a
permanent “SeeChange” camera, which allows access of her daily life to everyone in the
world. This leads to an utter loss of privacy for Mae.
John Cheever also describes undermining privacy in his short story “The
Enormous Radio”. The text portrays a married couple named Jim and Irene Westcott. The
Westcott’s invest in a new radio. One day while listening to the new radio, Irene
discovers she can hear her neighbor’s conversations. Irene becomes obsessed with
listening to this radio, consumed by the lives she was eavesdropping on. After days of
this preoccupation, Irene discovers that a couple’s quarrel she overheard had gotten
violent. Irene panics, but waits for Jim to come home. Jim tells her to stay out of other
people’s business and immediately makes the decision to fix the radio of its evil powers.
The radio leaves the couple with a sullen feeling in a state of flux, their relationship
forever changed.
Journalist Amanda Hess wrote a firsthand account of an attack via Internet and
the dangers of privacy. She is acclimated with a constant stream of harassment due to her
popular Internet presence. She informs the reader how one of her stalkers who has been
harassing her for years is back and even more threatening than before. She says there is
almost nothing she could do but sit idly by and try to ignore them since the police fail to
acknowledge an online threat as a serious issue. Hess recalls stories of countless women
writers who have been terribly tormented by anonymous emails and comments. Amanda
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Hess wrote her story with the intention of spreading the word about anonymous predators
and putting an end to them.
John Cheever first wrote “The Enormous Radio” for the New Yorker in the
1940’s. His audience was the general public, particularly New Yorker readers. After the
story’s popularity increased it was adapted for film and radio. Cheever was a novelist
living in 1940’s suburbia, just as the characters in his story had, when it was published.
The text was a response to the contemporary society and marriage style of the time
period. Cheever’s novel was published significantly earlier than The Circle and “Why
Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet” which were both published within the past two
years. It depicts a society with much dissimilarity to the one we live in today. The
“dominant male and subordinate female” type relationship is not seen as often in the
United States anymore. The powerful side of women that is seen today is explored in
Hess’s text. Hess’s work has been published in countless print and online magazines
such as NY Times, LA Times, and NYLON, most of which are promoting feminism
unlike Cheever’s novel. Since her recollections were partly from firsthand accounts and
partly from her own research she is qualified to write about this subject. She cites every
case that she uses as an example and puts various statistics regarding college level
studies, using ethos to logically appeal to the audience. Dave Eggers is also a critically
acclaimed author with a degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. His novel, The Circle was well respected by most critics. It was published in
2013, two years after the social media company, Facebook, became the largest online
photo host. The rise in Facebook’s popularity may have been influential for Eggers while
he was writing his novel. He indicated in an interview that he based The Circle off
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nothing other than his opinion on today’s society, as to not copy any other text. Eggers
wrote the novel in hopes of opening the public’s eye, generally young adults, to the
negatives of obsession and social networking.
Cheever and Eggers are both male writers who wrote fictional novels with a
damsel in distress as a main character. They fortified the prejudice notion that women are
the weaker gender through their writing. Cheever had a woman go to her husband when
she was in trouble. She becomes completely preoccupied with the radio and has a mental
breakdown over the constant information while the man nonchalantly turns the radio off
and makes the decision to remove it from their home. Egger’s novel was written almost
70 years after Cheever’s yet describes almost the same exact situation. A young female
(Mae) falls prey to the seemingly insignificant aspects of her social life while the male
(Mercer) declares himself too independent to fall into society’s trap. All three writers use
pathos to relate to their audience. Cheever and Hess both accurately correlate their
writing with the social aspects of the time period they were living in. Egger’s attempts to
also relate his writing to his audience, but instead creates a weak female character whose
traits are proven obsolete in today’s society let alone a futuristic one.
Each text had intelligent points and interesting takes on privacy. “Why Women
Aren’t Welcome on the Internet” helped me understand the real issue of subjectivity
towards women existing presently and how privacy influences people’s decision-making.
If the anonymous predators that were harassing her and other females on the Internet
were not anonymous they would most likely shy away from such harsh comments. The
Circle heightened my understanding of the psychology of privacy and although it seems
negative, too little of it can lead to disaster. Privacy is a necessity in our society’s social
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structure. There are some things no one needs to know. John Cheever’s short story also
brought me to the conclusion that some information should be left in the dark. All three
texts, through pathos, made their audience question the reliability of self-control and how
necessary privacy is in daily life. Each text led me, in it’s own way, to the same question
– will providing more private information publicly be beneficial to the person who is
providing it, or detrimental and will the positives outweigh the negatives?
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Works Cited
Cheever, John. The enormous radio, and other stories. New York: Funk & Wagnalls,
1953. Print.
Eggers, Dave. The Circle. San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2013. Print.
Hess, Amanda . "The Next Civil Rights Issue: Why Women Aren't Welcome on the
Internet." Pacific Standard. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcomeinternet-72170/>.