The Forties and the Fifties

World War 1939 - America First!

Pearl Harbor (12/7/49)

Realistic Novels

New Era: Age of Anxiety

Witch Hunt – McCarthy

Political fear

Uncomfortable with the post-war world

The new political era is less important than their psychological problem

Who am I?

Loneliness and search for the self

Southern Renaissance – loneliness

Eudora Welty: Delta Wedding (1946) Mississippi (mythical, fantasy world)

Mythical The Golden Apples (1949)

Flannery O’ Connor

Another World – Catholicism

„my audience are the people who think God is dead. At least these are the people I am conscious of writing for”

• The horror of life• Pain• suffering (Carson McCullers) Southern Gothic

“Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone.”

“But no value has been put on human life; it is given to us free and taken without being paid for. What is it worth? If you look around, at times the value may seem to be little or nothing at all. Often after you have sweated and tried and things are not better for you, there comes a feeling deep down in the soul that you are not worth much.” ― Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories

“There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries.”

Saul Bellow: Dangling Man (1944)

A soldier goes to army – communist – confused

- life is meaningless

“Do you have feelings? There are correct and incorrect ways of indicating them. Do you have an inner life? It is nobody's business but your own. Do you have emotions? Strangle them.” ― Saul Bellow, Dangling Man

Existentialism – without God and morals life is tough

New Hero in the fifties

Inside his/her head

Everything is there – no outside world – seems to be real

Bernard Malamud: The Assistant (1957)

“I’m an American, I’m a Jew, and I write for all men.” ― Bernard Malamud

Free love

Jewish tradition with humor

Philip Roth: The Breast

J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.” ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am - I really do - but people never notice it. People never notice anything.” ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Norman Mailer: The Naked and The Dead (1948)

13 soldiers sent to attack – no meaning – death

“The natural role of the twentieth-century man is anxiety.” ― Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

“The more things you own, the more things you need to keep you comfortable.” ― Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

“I HATE EVERYTHING WHICH IS NOT IN MYSELF” ― Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

Duality:

1. Fear of Communism2. Hollywood hides reality

New hero (express anger, refuse conform)

Why Are We in Vietnam (1967)

Truman Capote: The Cold Blood

Southern Gothic

Dreamlike reality

“Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in.” ― Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

“There’s got to be something wrong with us. To do what we did. ” ― Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

Allen Ginsberg: Howl (1956)

“Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” ― Allen Ginsberg

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, ….who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating ….― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

Poetry, message:

Defending drug taking Homosexuals Attack American society and politics Zen Buddhism – spontaneity – (power or carless)

Thank you!

Any questions?