According to Joseph Cummins, researcher on adolescent rebellion in the 1950s and 1960s, in 1946, 3.4 million babies were born in the United States, or more than ever before. This was followed by 3.8 million babies in 1947. After 1954, 4 million babies were born each year until 1964, when the baby boom subsided. These children came of age in the 1950s and 1960s and immediately began to rebel. (Cummins) As parents faced a new, more dangerous form of adolescent rebellion, suited to historically tense times. While all attention was focused on maintaining new societal norms and expelling communists from 1950s America, teenagers like Holden were allowed to simply slip through the cracks and watch their own state mental health deteriorate without proper treatment. Although some say that the book The Catcher in the Rye is not a social commentary on the ills of the 1950s, Salinger provides a first-hand account of the societal norms, historical tensions and psychological states of the era , proving that accountability fosters hypocrisy. no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay This period is infamous for its invisible war against communism as well as the unsettling need to live a secular lifestyle. cookie cutter after the economic boom. Parents found a safe place in the suburbs, able to provide for their children more than their parents had ever provided. There were certain rules to follow, and if they weren't, the children were expelled. Richard Powers, a professor at Stanford, says: “A significant proportion of the adult generation disapproved of the values ​​and lifestyle of adolescents and did something about it, including establishing new rules, restrictions and bans. Boys' hair touching their ears was not allowed, under penalty of expulsion. Most girls were not allowed to wear pants. The new slang – hipster speech – bothered most adults. It was part African-American, part beatnik, and part street gang...an offensive combination in the eyes of the status quo. (Powers) This seems extremely controlling and a bit hypocritical considering parents wouldn't allow their children to be their own individuals. It is something that everyone has wanted and is entitled to, it has been taken away from them, leading to the isolation and loneliness of adolescents. While trying to juggle teenage rebellion, parents also had another growing concern: the spread of communism. Alan Nadel puts it this way: “All of this took place through high-profile trials of suspected spies and subversives, loyalty oaths, Hollywood and academic purges, and extensive anti-communist legislation. » (Nadel) This made this time very difficult for the average man, because every citizen was both a threat and a threatened one. The constant thought that anyone around you could be an enemy ready to strike could drive anyone crazy and have no real test of loyalty. This is evident in Holden's speech as well as the continued use of the word "phonies", referring to the need to always be wary of one's friends, neighbors, and family members. Political tensions at the time were at an unprecedented level, and American people reflected this in the way they behaved and in their rhetoric. Alan Nadel, author of “Rhetoric,Sanity, and the Cold War: The Significance of Holden Caulfield's Testimony", states: "This aspect of the fiction could not be more emphasized than by Holden Caulfield's speech, a speech which, moreover, reflects the pressures and contradictions which prevalent in the Cold War society from which it was forged. (Nadel) Holden's use of profanity throughout the book shows his growing irritation, this could be reflected in the politics of this period. At one point, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies in wartime, but in peacetime they quickly became enemies due to conflicting ideologies and competition over global interests. This bred a form of paranoia that reshaped foreign policy for years after the Cold War. History.com states: “Many people in the United States feared that communists, or “subversives,” could destroy American society from within and without. » (History.com) Holden represents this paranoia that the American people were feeling at the time in The Catcher in the Rye when he goes to New York, takes a taxi, and then asks the taxi driver many questions, which only causes irritation in the world. driver while suddenly making him more paranoid and doubtful of Holden. (Salinger page 82) In those days, people were constantly on edge, always on the lookout for the lurking enemy. This reflects on the taxi driver because, at times, in order not to be suspected of being in bed with the enemy, it was necessary to look and act like everyone else. The 1950s were a time of great conformity in a political period of disarray and disloyalty. Everyone led the same cookie-cutter lifestyle, with some afraid to go off the rails for fear of being suspected of being communists. This period was also littered with unprofessional school environments and abstinence-only sex education that ultimately only harmed children. Despite many notable attempts by schools to improve their programs, they have still encountered difficulties in defining the goals of family life and sex education. According to Rose M. Somerville, author on family life and sex education, says: “The fact that some difficulties are contradictory only makes the problems worse. » (Somerville) This in itself screams hypocrisy at the highest level. To correctly define the goals of family life, the need for sex education becomes even more important. How can a child understand the gravity of his choices as an adult without knowing how to deal with adult problems? Isn’t that what the school system is paid to benefit American children for? Failing to teach children the importance of safe sex and how to avoid unwanted pregnancies can make or break their future and that of America's children. As the baby boomers grew up and began to become individuals, parents began to put an end to things like boys with long hair, jeans, rock n roll, and fast cars, because all of those were considered as unethical and not the societal norm. This is debatable given that when this generation's parents were teenagers themselves, they too wanted freedom and individualism, in a sense you could say they were rebelling. If children did not meet their parents' wishes, they were packaged up and sent to boarding school in the hope that they would be "mold" into a more productive member of society whereas, if they were put intheir place, they would not want that. raise debate about their morality and their ability to become parents. As Holden says in the book "They didn't do any more fucking casting at Pencey than at any other damn school" (Salinger, page 2), this shows that the schools themselves have not shaped the students into something special, they simply strongly encouraged the students to fall in line, which many did easily. They attended every football game, sitting on the sidelines, tirelessly cheering for their team, without knowing why they loved them in the first place. They learned all the material simply because they were asked to. They performed well on all state tests because they were expertly trained to pass them. It could be argued that in our time, no one has ever had a personal thought. They were always told what to wear, what to say and what to do. Take this example from Salinger: “The Saxon Hall match was supposed to be a very big issue around Pencey. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to kill yourself or something if old Pencey didn't win. (Salinger Page 1) Again, the morality of these parents is up in the air once you encourage your child to live a life that they don't want to live and force them to participate in things that ultimately , do not interest them. The theory alone is flimsy, but it lacks evidence to support the argument for the cookie-cutter lifestyle other than simply "I told you so." .” This in itself can be stressful for a child on top of the rejection of who they really are inside and in Holden's case the trauma of losing his brother has driven him almost insane and the belief is that it was for the biggest one. GOOD? If the reader really begins to analyze Holden, one could infer that Salinger is referring to the end of the book where Holden suffers a nervous breakdown and is subsequently sent to a mental hospital for treatment. Holden himself did not fit societal norms, such as not going to the most important football game of the year, he did not commit suicide, but a visit to the psychiatric hospital certainly can be classified in the category, as Salinger states. , "or something like that." (Salinger Page 1) Throughout the book, the reader watches as Holden's frustration slowly begins to eat away at him, causing his mental state to deteriorate. The book begins with Holden acting like a seemingly normal teenager brimming with angst, but as the book continues it becomes apparent that something is wrong with Holden, not just normal teenage rebellion. However, no one else seems to recognize what Holden is going through and he is written off as just another rebellious teenager, which is why most adults choose not to bother with him due to the difficulties he presents. . Psychologist Carl Pickhardt puts it this way: “Parents generally dislike adolescent rebellion, but it not only creates more resistance to their work of structure, guidance, and supervision. » (Pickhardt) Holden was not the only teenager of this period to have this problem, many teenagers had difficulty expressing themselves and many mental illnesses were neglected due to political tensions and the comfort brought by the economic boom . This raises questions about why his parents didn't provide him with help after his brother died and before it was too late, at a time when grief counseling was badly needed. This causes a feeling of selfishness that was prevalent in wartime society :.