Reply To: TRWR: America in the 1950s is often viewed as a time of peace, prosperity, and general well-being
The idealized vision of the 1950s is punctured by the loneliness and isolation of those men who are haunted by what they did and saw during the war. Brody Dern, Connie Graff, Sam Wicklow, Tyler Creasy, Felix Klein and Noah Bluestone were all emotionally wounded. While some kept their pain buried deep inside with the appearance of normal behavior in society, others numbed their pain in alcoholism and behavior not appropriate in society. “War does something vile and irreparable to the human spirit, leaves thick scars on the soul.” All of that in contrast to a time of new prosperity.
Angie and Ida Madison also have scars from the war with the loss of Christian. Because Angie and Ida have lost the men of their lives, they almost smothered Scott. His father was not real to him, only stories. Scott believed that “loneliness was the normal condition of people.” Del acted out his pain and the loss of his father in dangerous ways.
Charlotte (Charlie) Bauer’s own childhood was a personal war where she was punished for not being the child her father wanted. “She’d learned from her father that she was somehow unworthy of love, that no matter what she did, she could never win it.” Over time, she’d learned “to see what was beautiful about her, and she tried to look at other people with the same forgiving eye, and this had made a vast difference in how she embraced what life offered her.”
