Literature and Music as a Form of Expression During the 1950's

Throughout the nineteen fifties and sixties, literature was a method of communication for the writers. These authors (some of them from the Beat Generation of the fifties) had an outlet where they could share their experiences and observations. The world of music in this era was much the same way. During this time rock 'n' roll was born, and recording artists could express a sense of rebelliousness through a new sound that many older people in the show business didn't like. One such critic of rock was Frank Sinatra, who was quoted in 1957 as saying "Rock 'n' Roll smells phony and false...it is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.".

During the early fifties Ernest Hemingway was given recognition he deserved. After such novels as For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) he published The Old Man and the Sea in 1952. The powerful novelette about an aged Cuban fisherman won him the 1953 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. The following year Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

Meanwhile, other authors were writing novels that deal on a personal level with the long-standing American problem of racial prejudice. Passionate indignation about the black experience was voiced in Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man (1952) and in James Baldwin's novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953). J.D. Salinger was writing about rebellious adolescence, as was read in The Catcher in the Rye- a humorous and terrifyingly precise observation.

On the music scene, the sound was a mix of rhythm & blues and country-and-western swing. The man making this sound was Bill Haley, releasing such songs as "Rock Around the Clock" and "Shake, Rattle and Roll". In 1952 a southern flavor was added to Haley's style. Fats Domino was enjoying fame with such hits as "Goin' Home" and "Lawdy, Miss Clawdy" was a moneymaker for Lloyd Price.