Document Type
Thesis - University Access Only
Award Date
2009
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department / School
English
Abstract
The effects of the Depression and World War II motivated Americans to seek economic success more than work for social change. When World War II came to a close, servicemen returned home wanting to settle down and find stability. The American Dream, dramatized by Horatio Alger's nineteenth century "rags to riches" writings, seemed to work during the late 1940s and the 1950s, with marriages, the boom in births, jobs, tract homes, and the availability of the GI Bill, but cracks in the facade of this apparently seamless society existed. As David Halberstam explains in his book, The 50's, the years following World War II benefited many, but not everyone was content. Halberstam goes on to suggest that, while Americans who had lived through the Depression were mostly happy just to have jobs, many younger Americans eventually believed that they were not getting their "fair share" of this prosperity and began to voice their disillusionment with the American Dream. These younger Americans demonstrated this disillusionment by buying rock 'n roll records, tickets to movies like Rebel Without a Cause, books like Catcher in the Rye and, in a few cases, by becoming beatniks. I examine this disillusionment more closely by analyses of the three books listed in my title and related readings, and draw some tentative conclusions about the extent of the influence of these books. My thesis explores the power and influences of these texts by articulating their themes of non-conformity and personal identity and by examining critical and public reactions to them.
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Ellison, Ralph Invisible man
Wilson, Sloan, 1920-2003 Man in the gray flannel suit
Kerouac, Jack, 1922-1969 On the road
Social problems in literature
Conformity in literature
American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Format
application/pdf
Number of Pages
94
Publisher
South Dakota State University
Recommended Citation
Even, Shirley Renee, "Non-Conformist Fiction in 1950s America : Social Criticism in Invisible Man, The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit, and On the Road" (2009). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1574.
https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/etd2/1574
