Redemption (Historical Context)

Historical Context

Post-War World

John Gardner, born during the Great Depression, reached adolescence in the years immediately following World War II. The accident that killed his brother took place in 1947, just two years after the end of the war. During this time, much of America was still rural and agricultural. With the advent of the nuclear age, American society began to change as they responded to the communist threat from Eastern Europe. The tension between the United States and the Soviet Union is known as the “Cold War.”

In Europe, the aftermath of the World War II was very difficult. Much of Europe lay in ruins, the result of years of conflict. The realization of what happened at Nazi extermination camps shocked the public. In addition, the specter of Communism loomed as Eastern Europe found itself shrouded under what Winston Churchill called “The Iron Curtain.”

Post-War Philosophy and Art

In 1947, Albert Camus published his book, The Plague. The horrors of the war had convinced many people that there was no God, for certainly God would not allow such evil to exist in the world. Existentialists such as Camus and John Paul Sartre believed that humans are alone in the world, that existence is unique and unrepeatable. In addition, they maintained that humans are free to choose their own path in the world. This freedom is both awesome and awful, in the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s terms. Pushed to the extreme, existentialism becomes nihilism, the belief that there is no meaning in the world.

In 1947, Alfred Whitehead, the English mathematician and philosopher died. Whitehead and his philosophy had a great impact on Gardner; in fact, it was through Whitehead’s philosophy that he was able to reject the existential position taken by most philosophers of the day.

The Cold War

During the 1950s, the United States engaged in a serious cold war with the Soviet Union. The explosion of the atomic bomb made further “hot” war unthinkable; the annihilation of the entire planet was possible with the new weapons. Nevertheless, the major powers rushed to build nuclear arsenals, and the decade saw confrontation after confrontation, the world teetering on the edge of nuclear disaster. In a world such as this, Gardner looked to art to provide the moral foundation that seemed to be so lacking in the modern world.

During the 1960s, the Cold War continued. At the same time, the United States became involved in the Vietnam War, a conflict that many young people viewed as immoral and wrong. The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., along with increasing violence in the nation’s cities, led many to question the future of the nation.

Experimentation in literature and art occurred during the 1950s and 1960s. Richard Brautigan, William Gass, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, and John Fowles experimented with fiction. Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida in France began examining language and culture, which led to the concept of deconstruction. John Gardner, while a literary experimenter himself, often found himself in opposition to the trends of his day. For these reasons, he felt compelled to detail his aesthetic and moral philosophy in a number of essays and interviews. By the 1970s, Gardner was well known as a cultural and literary commentator, contending that good art is also moral art.

Compare & Contrast

• 1940s: Many families live on farms, providing food and dairy products for the nation. Farmers were excused from the draft because they were essential to the health of the nation.

  1990s: Fewer and fewer families live on farms. Instead, most agriculture is conducted by large-scale industrial farms.

• 1940s: Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. In addition, many children who work on family farms suffer injury or death.

  1990s: While fewer children work on farms, the occupation is still a dangerous one. Injuries still occur to children working on their family farms.

• 1940s: World War II draws to a close and veterans return home. Many attend college on the GI Bill. Women who have been filling factory jobs during the war are encouraged to return home to make room for returning soldiers.

  1990s: American soldiers are called up to fight in the Gulf War, and then in the bombing of Serbia. The United States is blessed with a low unemployment rate and qualified men and women have little problem finding a job.

• 1940s: Existentialist philosophers such as John Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Soren Kierkegaard attempt to make sense out of the world devastated by the war. Sartre, a member of the French resistance, tries to recover from torture he suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

  1990s: The work of postmodern philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault continue to influence the way that writers depict culture and reality.

• 1940s: The end of World War II marks the beginning of the powerful Soviet Bloc. America and the Soviet Union struggle to gain supremacy over the other.

  1990s: The Soviet Bloc no longer exists, and communism is no longer considered the greatest threat to American security. However, the devolution of the Eastern Bloc leads to potentially dangerous situations in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.