We are very fortunate to live in a society that has become increasingly tolerant of the rights of individuals to choose whom they love. Since the sexual revolution of the late 60’s, the American people have become increasingly aware and tolerant of the LGBTQ community. This was not the case in the 1950’s, when the era of McCarthyism began to associate the already severely repressed gay community with what was then perceived to be the ultimate threat to the security of Americans: Communism. This is the era in which The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith was set, and it is very clear through the actions and desires of many characters that homosexuality is a taboo. Freddie Miles, one of the American expatriates living in Europe and an associate of Dickie Greenleaf and Marge Sherwood, exhibited the possibility of homosexual or at least bisexual behavior. It is a necessity that we endeavor to understand the society and culture contemporary to the Novel, so that we can better understand both the individual characters and our own society.
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In the 1950’s, homosexuality was extremely taboo. Those who chose to
live this kind of lifestyle would’ve most likely remained closeted for fear
of being outcast or worse being attacked by a public that largely
misunderstood and despised the gay community. There were a few
persons of note that embraced their choice lifestyle, among them, Allan
Turing the famed cryptographer who suffered greatly in England because
of his beliefs, the famed poet Allen Ginsberg of the Beat generation
whose poem Howl was subject to a Supreme Court obscenity trial for
depicting acts of homosexuality, and the author of the Talented Mr. Ripley
herself Patricia Highsmith. Along with the tide of McCarthyism that swept
1950’s America, a campaign to isolate homosexuality known as the Lavender
Scare lead to many government employees losing their jobs because of their sexuality. This was not helped by the fact that the few groups that supported rights for gays were often also associated with the far-left ideology of Marxism, which is understandable given its connection to the Civil Rights movements of the time period, but nonetheless gave Communist hating government officials the opportunity to attempt to eliminate what they perceived as a threat to their society.
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The context of homosexuality in the 1950’s is not left out of the Talented Mr. Ripley. The main character Tom is portrayed as someone with a great deal of psychological angst because of his sexuality. It is reasonable to assume that if Freddie felt the same desires as Tom, then he too would have possessed a great deal of angst relative to the society that he lived in. Patricia Highsmith wrote about the self-loathing in the hearts of her characters perhaps as an expression of her own sexual identity. Nonetheless, analyzing a time period of intolerance through the textual and contextual elements of the Talented Mr. Ripley give us appreciation in for the current state of LGBTQ rights in American. The LGBTQ community may feel that it remains a group that is discriminated against, and this is most certainly true in some regards, but by looking into the past we gain a greater appreciation of the tolerance that exists in our democracy today.
Homosexuality in the 1950's
context
1950's
By Levi Haliday
Via the Slightly Warped Website
The Talented Mr. Ripley was thriller novel, written in 1955. The beginning of the story takes place in New York, then eventually ends up in Italy. In New York during the 1950s was the end of World War 2. Thousands of men returning back home, corporate expansion and job growth. Living conditions were bad for a lot of people during this time period. Since it was the end of World War II, there was a racial segregation, lack of food and jobs. After world war 2, New York emerged as an economic and cultural world center. Between 1950 and 1960 reflected the concentration of multinational corporate administration. In 1952 the immigration and Naturalization act removed racial and ethnic barriers to becoming a U.S citizen. The immigration act was purposely to exclude certain immigrants from coming to American during World War 2 and the beginning of the Cold War.
In the late 1820s public transportation began. New York was the first city in American to use motor buses for public transit. The expansion of motor buses continued outrageously through the 1920s and 1930s. To improve New York’s transportation, city authorities began building subway’s to quickly move people around to their destination. During the 1950s motor buses replaced trolley routes. Trolley’s operated by electrical power and ran for 70 years, they were faster and cheaper to build than cable cars, so they continued running the trolley’s through the 1950s. In 1953 the New York State Legislature created the New York City Transit and it became apart of the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) in 1968.
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During World War II in Italy, they remained neutral. In 1940 Italy suffered from an
attack and 60 percent of Italy’s industrial production was destroyed from the
bombing in 1943. The Germans poured troops in Italy after the allies landed at
Salerno and Italy surrendered in 1943. The U.S Marshall Aid helped Italy from
1949-1953 and Italy experienced an economic miracle. In the 1950s and the 1960s,
a large amount of people from Italy moved to the industrial centers to obtain a
better standard of living and to seek better jobs. This caused major unemployment
issues and over crowding issues. Italy’s government spent millions on a fund to help
develop the industries. The fund succeeded improving transportation and majority
of people’s living conditions began to rise in the early 1960s.
Italy consumed 1.7 percent of all the energy worldwide and almost one-third of it was used towards transportation. Transportation in Italy was very difficult do to the narrow shape and mountainous terrain. Transportation improved tremendously between the 1950s and 1980s. A major road building program was carried out in Italy by multiple different private companies between 1955 and 1975. Do to many varies routes and many different private companies, certain roads are charged tolls. Majority of the people in Italy use buses, trains or street cars, Italian railways are the most popular transportation in Italy, they are state owned and many people consider them the best way to travel around Italy.
Transportation
By Alexyis Edwards
Via Alamay Images
In the late 1900’s communication technology was very different then today's current communication technology. Think about how hard it was to reach someone if there was a emergency or a serious problem that you just needed to talk to that person at that moment and you couldn’t, Would be stressful right. The history of technology communication during this time, connects with this book through Dickie and his father and the reason tom was sent away. The first cell phone wasn't created till 1973 by Martin Cooper back in the 50’s the most common way to reach another individual was to send a letter. Even when the first cell phone was created people still had problems trying to communicate long distance. The device only gave you about thirty minutes of use time and took about ten hours to charge. The company who was responsible for the first cell phone was Motorola.
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In 1983, mobile phones went on sale in the United States for the first time. The first cell phone was very expensive costing 4,000 dollars each. There was over 250 million Nokia 1100 devices was sold, it was the bestselling electrical gadget in history. The first mobile phone costed a lot of money that the average person wouldn't probably have. In the 2000 mobile phones became very popular and almost everyone had one. This is the time period when 3G networks started and mobile phones became very useful to almost everyone. Me myself use my phone a lot during the day. It is said that the average person unlocks their phone 110,00 times a day.
The history Long distance communication have a connection with the novel The Talented Mr. Ripley because this book was published in 1950, and in the 1950 it made it hard to communicate with a person long distance. To communicate long distance in this time period people had to send mile, sending mail could be a long process when you are trying to get in touch with that you haven't heard form in a while. This could be the reason why Mr. Greenleaf paid Tom way to be sent off to go find Dickie. In the novel it was said by Mr. Green leaf that he would send mail to Dickie but he wouldn't reply. If Mr. Greenleaf was in the current time period of today he probably wouldn't ha ave had to sent Tom over to send a message over for him to Dickie. Mr. Greenleaf could have simply gotten in touch with him by one push of a button on a mobile phone in today's current time period. This is the reason why I think the history of long distance technology have a connection with this novel and the characters.
Communications
By Phillip Ellis
Via Pinterest
