War: Influence On Society
The book to be analyzed is The Catcher in The Rye by Jerome D. Salinger published in 1951. The story is centered on a teenager named Holden Caufield, whose own understanding of the society around him makes him live like an outsider. In The Catcher in the Rye not only narrates the existential disorientation of the protagonist, who ignores and despises rules, but also their social disorientation. Salinger portrays a society, the North American of the 50s, which was beginning to become what will later be called the "consumer society". In the 1950s, the United States experienced a cultural revolution driven by post war, rapid industrial development and the consequent phenomenon of consumerism. The developed societies, with greater availability of income and excessive amount of free time, consume not only goods but also services such as transport and leisure. "Consumer society" or "mass consumer society" is the term used in economics and sociology, to designate the type of society that corresponds to an advanced stage of capitalist industrial development and that is characterized by the massive consumption of goods and services that are available. In this sense, the criticism of this type of society is given by the effect of information manipulation, in order to "mold" the consumer to turn it into the "ideal consumer" that companies want.
This, in itself mirrors the image of a protagonist that Salinger created in Caufield as he created the character the book…Besides many other factors that will be analyzed through the political, sociological and cultural points of view, the analysis will be done on the basis that political, sociological and cultural circumstances have played a crucial role in the life of men and women in the United States during the writing of this book and many years to follow. Political context The decade of the 50s was a time of transformation for the United States, events such as the Great Depression and World War II led to significant changes in their economy and society. This is a period of economic prosperity due to its victory in the Second World War and therefore placed the United States as a world power. Their national income tripled within a couple of years and the American society was becoming more affluent and the government had more power of persuasion worldwide. As this decade was characterized by the economic prosperity as the aftermath of World War II, more families raised their income and had access to be part of the middle class. Therefore, a new consumer society began. (Gilbert 4)The U. S. decided to move from the traditional isolationism that they kept for years, to a foreign policy with wider participation in the international affairs.
This was possible when the US Senate voted for the approval of the US participation in the United Nations (Christie & Ferguson 2). The country's leaders wanted to preserve the democratic structure and they made a strong stand against the Soviet Union leading to the Cold War that was unfolded in 1945. The Cold War developed when differences in ideologies during the brosd period, gave rise to suspicion and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union. Few years after the war ended, the United States adopted a broad foreign policy strategy that has come to be known as containment. The Containment policy was designed to contain the spread of Communism and it was implemented by the Truman Doctrine. (Spanier 41)
American policy in the postwar years consisted in containing the Soviet Union. In 1947 President Harry S. Truman established that the policy of the United States should consist of assisting democratic nations against the subjugation of external or internal dictatorial forces. In turn, this statement provoked a wave of anti-Communist hysteria throughout the country. At the beginning of 1948, the Congress set in motion the "Marshall Plan” to help and rebuild Europe after its devastation by World War II, eliminate trade barriers and modernize the industry. This plan is generally considered one of the most successful foreign policy initiatives in the history of the United States. (Spanier 50)Harry Truman's national program was called "The Fair Deal". His policy aimed for the economic opportunities and social stability. Truman's first priority after the war was to accomplish the transition to an economy of peace time.
The soldiers were in a hurry to return home, but as soon as they did they faced competition for housing and employment. The G. I. Bill of Rights, was approved before the end of the war, helped to facilitate their reintegration into civil life, as it provided them with various benefits, as loans with a guarantee for the purchase of housing and financial aid for their training industrial and university education. (Christie & Dinnerstein 4)The United States experienced a cultural revolution driven by rapid industrial development and the consequent phenomenon of Consumerism. The growth of the economic stimulus had different sources, the large-scale public expenditures for the Second World War, the manufacturing of cars was quadrupled, increase in housing construction and the largest corporations in the United States grew even more. (Fainsod & Gordon 863)In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the successor of President Truman. Eisenhower had the same opinion as Truman about the foreign policy of the country, he also saw communism as a threat attempting the world supremacy. (Christie & Dinnerstein 5)Cultural ContentIn the 1930s, millions of Americans postponed marriage and children during the Great Depression. At its worst, a quarter of the workforce was unemployed, and the number of people with own homes fell by 10%. But during the war, the US economy prospered, and the huge orders to industries for the war effort doubled economic production. (Chafe 7)After year of suffering during the Great Depression and War World II, people in the 1950 wanted to live more peaceful and traditional family lives. When the war ended, there was a long line of Americans looking for a family and the younger ones shared their optimistic vision of permanent prosperity. They began to marry younger, and have children at a younger age than ever before and families were more conservative; the gender roles were far stricter than it is today. During the fifties only men were responsible of financially support the house and women stayed at home taking care of the house and kids, this was the social pattern widely accepted at that time.
A film in 1950 called A Date with Your Family taught families how to behave during family dinners, what kind of conversations and behaviors were appropriated for ideal and traditional American families. Shows and TV programs focused and promoted the ideal nuclear family and a big mass purchase of televisions occurred during those years. (Gilbert 54)The so-called Baby Boom generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, it refers to the increase in birth rates after the Second World War and had a profound effect on the economy of that country. This phenomenon began when, at the end of the war, the soldiers returned to their homes to get married and to form families, but its origins had to do with the economy as much as with the end of the war. (Gilbert 58)The high number of new families triggered a bonanza driven by consumption since the 1950s. There was a boom in the construction of suburban housing, with an associated increase in the number of owners of cars and other durable consumer goods such as television sets. Education also expanded, first in basic education and then in secondary and university level. The number of people who enrolled in the university tripled in those years. In general, the US economy grew at a rate of 4% per year in the 1950s, while productivity increased along with the population. (Chafe 112)
Alienation
Alienation is a very important issue in the social sciences and its concept is frequently used in contemporary works; however, it is a term that is used very ambiguously. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the term alienation can be defined as “a withdrawing or separation of a person or a person's affections from an object or position of former attachment”. In this paper, only social alienation will be studied. There are five different meanings that we can give to "alienation": impotence, lack of meaning, abnormality, isolation and self-alienation. Melvin Seeman was a sociologist who classified the different uses of the term "alienation", since in his time (mid-twentieth century) it was very ambiguous and was used in different ways. (Inkeles 92)The first variant of alienation is "Powerlessness", which is the impossibility of influencing in the result of an issue. It refers to the impossibility of influencing in our own actions, because they are for someone else. In this case the basic question when realizing this alienation is: What can I do? This helplessness develops in two ways: internal and external.
The first one is when a person put limitations on himself to influence the actions because it is impossible and the latter is when the environment in which a person develops does not allow it. (Inkeles 92)The second type of alienation that Seeman mentions is "Meaninglessness" which would be translated as "lack of meaning". This form is taken from the Frankfurt School and says that there is a separation between knowledge and power. And the central question is: How do I understand what I do? It shows a lack of meaning in what we do and is represented in the intellectual, who is alienated from his knowledge. That is to say that man does not understand what he does, he does not see the depth of his actions, we believe that we do what we want but in reality we are doing something else. (Inkeles 92)The third form of alienation is called by the author as "Normlessness", which would be "abnormal". This type of alienation was developed by the French Sociological School of Durkheim and its central question is: How should I behave? It occurs when there is a difference between what society expects from a person and what society provides that person to meet their expectations.
An example would be that society demands that they know how to read and write but does not give their society educational tools. Then there are two ways of acting in the face of such an alienation: the first would be rebellion to demand the resources with which to fulfill what society itself demands; the other would be the mystification that consists of trusting in superstitions or chance so that expectations are fulfilled (the lottery, asking miracles from saints), that is, waiting for the problem to be resolved on its own. (Inkeles 92)The fourth form of alienation is "Isolation".
And the main question is: What is it worth? In other words, different perceptions of what is really important are faced here. When for a person something has more or less importance or value than what society considers then it is said that, that person is alienated from others. (Inkeles 92)And the last type of alienation is what the author calls "Self-estrangement" that translated would be "self-alienation", the central question in this type of alienation is What do I want? This occurs when there is a discrepancy between what a person wants and what a person does. He calls it self-alienation because there is no external force that prevents realization, but it is interior and probably the most difficult of all. (Inkeles 92)
