Kianni Delgado

Mrs. Carroll

American Literature

5 June 2017

It Was Change.

America in the 1950s had many things that resulted in fear, but knowing what these fears

were, was the real question. Fear, ​“an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone of

something is dangerous..​” Change,​ “to make or become different”​. From all the books for the

quarter, you can see one main thing that Americans feared and that was change. Americans

feared change because during this time period everyone cared about how one another viewed

them. People of the 1950s cared about how they looked to a society and whether or not they fit

in. Fitting in a society in the 1950s was something many people wanted to do, but for some

people, it wasn’t exactly what they did. From A Raisin in the Sun to How We Built the Ghettos

to The Catcher in the Rye, you can see how change was a main factor of fear for many people in

the 1950s. Overall, change was a factor of fear in the 1950s because the people of the 1950s

feared the way they looked in a society. During this time period, people worried to much about

how they looked to one another, whether or not they fit into the right crowd. Many of these

factors are shown throughout many different stories and change was definitely something that set

fear within these people.

 Change was a fear that most people had in the 1950s, whether it was change internally or

externally. Over this period of time, one of the main change factors that people feared was

internally. Change was something that internally caused fear in the Younger’s family from “a

Raisin in the Sun” and Holden from “Catcher in the Rye”. In the book, ​“A Raisin in the Sun”​,

Mama ended up getting a house, with the money she got, in a highly populated white area. When

Mama did so, Ruth questioned why she did that, beings they were a black family and technically

“weren’t allowed there”. In the book it stated, “Ruth: Clybourne Park? Mama, there ain't no

colored people living in Clybourne Park…..Ruth: Well-Well-’course I ain’t one never been ‘fraid

of no crackers, mind you-but-well, wasn’t there no other houses nowhere?” (Hansberry 2.1).

Here, just by the way she speaks upon it, you can tell Ruth is fearing this change of living

situations because of their color. Ruth, knowing the racial ways of this time, wanted to question

why Mama would get a home there because she knew that wasn’t such a smart idea because of

the way people were at this time.

Connecting to “A Raisin in the Sun” , “Catcher in the Rye”, Holden changes his mind

about going West because he internally feared the change of having to grow up on his own. From

the beginning of the book though, Holden feared the way he was changing. Holden noticed how

lonely he was becoming and how he had to do things on his own now, so he was fearing the way

people viewed him. When Holden chose to stay home rather than move out west, not only was

he fearing growing up but he was also fearing losing his family. He chose to stay home for his

family but throughout the story, Holden did fear having to change things within his life, which

resulted in him having to grow up. In the book, ​“Catcher in the Rye”​, it stated, “I mean how do

you know what you’re going to do till you do it?” (Salinger 213). Here, this is something that
Holden stated, but thinking about it, it shows how he has grown out of these fears of what people

think of you. All of these changes within Holden only resulted in him having to go into the

mental institute because of the way he was. All of these things with Holden only came because

of his internal fear of change. Prime example of how people would talk upon one another is

when Holden spoke bad about women. In the book, it also stated, “Real ugly girls have it tough. I

feel so sorry for them sometimes. Sometimes I can’t even look at them…” (Salinger 85). Here

you can just see an example of ways that people viewed and talked about one another during this

time period. Holden himself, someone who feared change, was a judgemental person to people

because he was just like everyone else during this time period.

Connecting both”A Raisin in the Sun” and “Catcher in the Rye” , I would use the video

of “America in the 1950s”. In the video of​ “America in the 1950s​”, many people feared change

both internally and externally. A section of the video talked about how to be aware of men

because they may be a homosexual. During this time in this video it stated, “So no matter where

you meet a stranger, be careful if they’re are to friendly. One never knows when a homosexual is

about...the sickness of the mind. You see Ralph was a homosexual.” Here you can see that

people's fears came from videos that were made in this time period showing ways to “protect”

yourself. Though in the video it was very stereotyped, many people of the 1950s generally

believed these videos that were released. This video is prime example of what people feared and

what caused this fear. This video just shows that people would release videos like these and

people, specifically the boys, would fear who they spoke to or how they acted to one another

because they could've been “homosexuals”. In the 1950s was a time where people were finding
their different sexualities , but people were putting it out the the world in a totally different way.

This topic would move onto the next source of “America” by Allen Ginsberg.

Allen Ginsberg was a homosexual himself who lived during the Beat Generation and also

wrote during this generation. He wrote “America” which was written to explain how America

did not change and how the people of America wanted change. In this case, Americans feared no

change from America itself. In the text of ​“America”​ it stated, “America I’ve given you all and

now I’m nothing...America when will we end the human war?...America I’m putting my queer

shoulder to the wheel” (Ginsberg 1). Here you can see how Ginsberg was really pushing on

America as a whole for having no change within itself. Though Americans feared change, they

also feared the fact that America wasn’t changing for the better of all people. In Ginsberg’s case,

American’s feared America not changing for the better of themselves. This reading from Allen

Ginsberg shows that America has no point in change and no matter what an American does

within a society, American doesn’t change for the better for the people. Reason to why this

connected to the video was because it shows around that period of time how homosexuals were

starting to come out yet, men feared either they were one or may know one. In this time period

this fear of homosexuals may have caused a huge change within the people because the men

would start to distance themselves from other men because you wouldn’t really know if they

were a “homosexual” or not.

Another way to connect “America in the 1950’s” and “America” was with the text of

“How fears are sold”. In the text of “how fears are sold”, you can see how it would connect to

the assumptions that were set in America and Americans in the 1950s. In this text, it talks mainly

about road rage and how accidents that occur are because of “road rage” and how some car crash
deaths are because of road rage. Already, you can see how the media set up so many assumptions

within this text and Americans came to actually believe these things. The way Americans feared

change within this text was because the change that was occurring within the media, had set fear

in people to whether or not they should have road rage when driving. In ​“How Fears are Sold”​ it

stated, “In the 1990s police and reporters treated all variety of highway mishaps as road

rage….The fatal accident had been caused by the driver going up an exit ramp in the wrong

direction, but reporters and highway patrol officers labeled it “another case of road rage”

(Glassner 5). Here, you can see the crazy assumption that the media and cops were setting out

about crashes. The way that this shower feared within Americans was because they feared to get

road rage because it “could result in a crash”. This text shows how the change within the media

set more fear upon Americans because not only did they fear who they talked to because of

sexuality but now they had to fear how they reacted when driving. All of these changes only

piled on more fear upon Americans.

Lastly, Americas Feared change, but some people feared change because of their color.

Majority of the fear , change , came from all races , but according to the text of “How we Built

the Ghettos” , African Americans had feared the change within their living community because

of their color. In the text of “How We Built the Ghettos” , it talks about something called redoing

and it pretty much a way to which they can deny you key services to homes or increase your

home payments . This was mainly something they used against blacks and other minorities. In

the text of ​“How We Built the Ghettos”​ it stated, “In short, redlining forced blacks into particular

areas and then starved those areas of affordable capital. Combined with widespread job

discrimination—which barred blacks from public employment and forced them into low-wage
labor—you had neighborhoods that were impoverished by design” (Bouie 2). Here you can see

the ways in which change within a living community may pile up fear onto African Americans in

the 1950s. According to the text, neighborhoods were changing racially and that only affected

the living situations with African Americans and it even pushed them out of certain places. This

happening, only resulted in redlining being highly effective over them because prices on homes

to where they got pushed to live, was just increase because of redlining.

Overall, you can see how change was a main factor of fear for the people in America in

the 1950s. Change was a factor of fear both internally and externally and it was also shown

through a majority of races. America was a place of fear and America itself didn’t do things to

change for the better. Change had put fear in many people and even today's world, change is

something Americans still fear. Change set bars high when it came to fear though. Throughout

all of the readings, change has to be one of the main fears within Americans in the 1950s.