Post WWII America: Life in the ’50s

Life in the 1950’s led men to live a heavily structured life.  They were expected to work during the day, give their wife a kiss on the cheek when they came home to a hot meal, and start it all up again the next morning.  Exercised long enough, this routine will inevitably lead to a passive attitude with little to look forward to each day.  In The Enormous Radio the Jim Westcott followed a daily, cyclical schedule that involved a lot of work and a little relaxation by the radio before going to bed.  He was lulled into such a sense of monotony that he didn’t even change anything when their income was at stake and his marriage was being strained.  The Country Husband also shows examples of passivism through Francis Weed.  Francis had been living this “day in, day out” lifestyle for several years until he finally received a wake up call after a brush with death.  However, even when he realized the life he lived had little excitement he decided to ignore it and continue to live the same way anyways.  Captain York from Fort Apache never lived the same day twice.  He was living on the wild frontier of the West and on the border between war and peace.  Captain York exercised a part of his personality that most men on the 1950’s wished they had, a willingness to act.  When his commanding officer was making a foolish decision of war on the Apache, he immediately stood up to this and strongly voiced his disapproval.  He wasn’t going to let Commander Thursday begin an unnecessary war without him at least doing his best to prevent it. 

Fitting into society was very important during the postwar era; many things in life depended on your social standing.  Some things, such as being married to a moral girl and having a nice house, were expected by society.  The penalty for not fitting into these molds could be as extreme as being fired from your job and losing your lifestyle, so there was a place for being passive in some areas.  However, this does not mean that you had to give up all individuality to blend into the mix.  The Westcott’s had their taste in music that separated them from their neighbors.  Also, the naked couple at the end of The Country Husband shows that you can live a life that is acceptable by society and still be individuals with excitement about life.

The allure of the exciting lifestyle of the wild West brought the men of the 1950’s to watch movies such as John Ford’s Fort Apache and escape from their lives that were the exact opposite as the heroic Captain York’s.  By analyzing the characters, symbols, and scenes from Fort Apache and several stories by John Cheever, one sees the difference between who the men of the postwar era wanted to be, and who they actually were.  Many times the men showed passivism, materialism, and the lack of heroism.  However, there is still hope for those who stuck out like the uninhibited couple in The Country Husband to stand out from the crowd and be the Captain York of their day.