J. D. Salinger and the Cold War: A Case Study in American Cold War Fatalism

Date of Award

5-1-2025

Degree Name

M.A. in English

Department

Department of English

Advisor/Chair

Tereza Szeghi

Abstract

President Eisenhower’s 1953 UN speech, “Atoms for Peace,” helped to define the mounting concerns of the atomic age. He demanded that the global community accept the “significant facts” of their midcentury existence, or the domineering threat of global annihilation. This pervasive anxiety, reinforced by early Cold War political maneuverings like the US containment policy, would stricken the American people with “Cold War fatalism,” or a prevailing sense of alienation and submission in the earliest years of the Cold War, wrought by the new atomic age. The midcentury literary scene embodied such fatalism, as well, creating sect of nuclear first responders who grappled with new cultural questions and worries. High among them is J. D. Salinger, author of the 1951 classic The Catcher in the Rye, whose later works captured the necessary acceptance of fate in order to survive in the new, dichotomous, nuclear world. My paper follows Salinger’s character, Seymour Glass, and his appearances across three different works – “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” (1948) Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction (1959), and Franny and Zooey (1961). He is the eldest sibling of the cerebral Glass family, both a brilliant poet and highly spiritual, and commits suicide while on vacation with his wife. Through Seymour, Salinger displays the consequences of failing to adhere to Cold War fatalism, by embodying themes like artistic and spiritual purity, Seymour was incompatible with his historical moment and took his own life. I argue that, by reading Seymour Glass as inextricably bound to the Cold War era, Salinger may take part in a larger Cold War literature conversation, illuminating other avenues of study while deemphasizing The Catcher in the Rye and its relentless critical attention.

Keywords

American Literature, Literature

Rights Statement

Copyright 2025, author.

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