The American Dream In The 1950's

Superior Essays
World War II gave Americans an unprecedented era of economic growth, prosperity, and happiness, so it seemed. Everyone desired the perfect life, with the perfect family, in the perfect home: the American Dream. The ultimate goal was to meet the love of your life, get married young, move to the suburbs (which you could surprisingly afford after the economic boom) and start popping out babies. The perfect home was a well kept one, always clean and containing the newest, shiniest appliances to a housewife’s delight. The perfect family was a married, heterosexual couple with two or three well-behaved children; the father’s duties were to go to work and be the breadwinner while the mother stayed home to make bread. The perfect life was pretending that this ‘perfect lifestyle’ was in fact a dream come true. During the 1950’s this level of conformity was the social norm; there wasn’t room in popular culture for those who didn’t have this cookie-cutter lifestyle. Eventually, this style of living like clones and robots sparked a rebellion. John Updike, author of the short story “A & P”, encompasses the theme of conformity and rebellion perfectly packaged within the main character, Sammy. Sammy is just a teenage boy who sees the world passing by him; he’s just another person trying to conform and be what society wants him to be. One day, three girls walk into his store and show him what it’s like to break the rules. They indirectly teach him about freedom, how to escape from the system of rules in which he is trapped in. Updike summarizes the living conditions in the 50’s and the pressure to not stray to far from the path. The perfect ideal lifestyle that people conformed to in this era was deceptive and corrupt in reality. A corrupt issue that went unquestioned was the gender specific roles forced on people, especially women. …show more content…
Settling into these roles began early on life, girls who didn’t get married during or after high school would only go to college to primarily find a husband. During this decade, women were only encouraged to find a spouse rather than to pursue higher education or training for a future career; they weren’t encouraged to have ambitions of their own. They were taught to settle into gender roles instead to defy them. These roles were previously established in the 1940’s when women had to fill in for men when they went off to war, to take over the jobs in construction and manufacturing. However, when the men came back women were fired instantly to give those jobs back to their male counterparts. This lead to a woman’s place being considered the home instead a work force. Betty Friedan, author of the “Feminine Mystique,” believed woman wanted and needed more out of life, which is accurate; life can’t be fulfilling if society tells you your ambition is cooking, cleaning, and caring for children: Over and over again, stories in women 's magazines insist that women can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child. They deny the years when she can no longer look forward to giving birth, even if she repeats the act over and over again…there is no other way for a woman to dream of creation or of the future. There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children 's mother, her husband 's wife. (115) The first line refers to images of women practically going hog-wild over new appliances were shown in all types of media, as if new appliances and cleaning products is what they lived for. This stereotype was reinforced everywhere in society through various media types. Friedan pointed this out in her book and broke the silence of among women and opened up a dialogue. The ideal, big, happy family was another standard to live up to and maintain. During this time, men and women typically met in high school or college and got married at a young age, around 18-22years of age. Once married, there is no honeymoon phase to enjoy the marriage; honeymoons were meant to make babies and begin the process of creating a family. Families were very traditional during this

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