The 1950s and The Manchurian Candidate
Mitchell August Dohle
Honors AP English Language and Composition
Honors AP United States History
Old Historical Criticism Essay
May 21st, 2014
Imagine a time of fear and chaos. Imagine a time of not knowing what will happen tomorrow. Imagine a time that you wouldn’t know if you were even going to see your kids after school. Imagine a time where the fear of communism was all around, even the possibility of being in your own government. Imagine a time that despite all of the fears and unknowns, people tried to stay positive and live their everyday lives. Imagine a time where a World War was one detonation away from erupting. Imagine the 1950s.
When reading The Manchurian Candidate you get a sense of how the American people and American politics in the 1950s panicked whenever the fear of communism entered the United States. The author of the book, Richard Codon, uses the historical events such as the red scare to prove how the panic occurred. As well as show how America manipulated themselves into trying to believe that everything was ok and that they couldn’t be harmed whenever the threat of a missile strike was knocking on America’s door.
Politically everything was chaotic and nobody wanted to make a decision on what to do because of the fear of starting a war with the Soviet Union. But despite the political pandemonium that was occurring, the American society was trying to stay precisely calm in order to not start a pandemic. After World War 2, America started to bounce back economically even though they went through an inflation, and going through one during the Cold War. Culturally, after World War 2, America started to take back the role of having a “family.” The baby boom happened and America was in good spirits that the war was over. So the 1950s were filled with a mixture of events; and these events almost made America pull its hair out of its head.
You know, it’s sort of funny that right now, you have no control over any of your actions or decisions. A disturbing idea, but nonetheless, indubitably true. In the book, The Manchurian Candidate, main character Raymond Shaw is constantly being manipulated by friends, family, and people with high and dangerous power. These people use Raymond in the worst and sneakiest of ways that in which he doesn’t realize. And once he does finally realize there is nothing he can do. The book, The Manchurian Candidate, written by Richard Condon shows us how easy it is to manipulate someone through ways in which that person cannot see.
Raymond Shaw was a war hero, Medal of Honor veteran of the Korean War, and son of a politician. So you think he would be pretty set for the rest of his life, except, how did he get his Medal of Honor award? “Why should I have gotten a Medal of Honor? I can’t even remember even being in action. I remember the facts about the action, sure. But I don’t remember the action.”(184). Raymond is being embarrassingly manipulated by others around him that he doesn’t even question getting the award. His best friend and comrade, Marco, was having nightmares of his squad being brainwashed by communist Russians and Koreans. “Now,” Yen Lo said, “to operate Raymond it amused me to choose as his remote control any ordinary deck of playing cards.”(49). Yen Lo, a Korean doctor, refers to controlling someone as easy as using a remote control. Perhaps we, the American people, are being manipulated as easy as pressing the buttons on a remote control to switch the channel. The doctor also suggests the remote control being a deck of playing cards. This shows that with something so simple such as playing cards we can get tricked or manipulated.
See Raymond loved only one girl in his whole life, Jocelyn Jordan. It just so happens that Raymond meets her while him and his mother are at their lake house. Raymond and Jocelyn fall in love during that summer, but eventually Raymond’s mom finds out that Jocelyn’s dad is a big competitor to her husband’s campaign run. So while Raymond is sleeping, his mom writes Mr. Jordan a letter saying, “…that his daughter was far too fine a girl to be hurt or twisted by her son, that Raymond was a homosexual and in other ways degenerate, and that he would be far, far better forgotten by this sweet, fine child.”(103-104). Raymond doesn’t here from her, so assumes that she just left him. So just after one night, Raymond gets manipulated with lying so easily that he doesn’t question it.
The best manipulators are the ones in which you trust. See, every time Raymond hears, “Why don’t you pass the time with some solitaire?” he becomes brainwashed and will do whatever he is told to do. “Every man in the room was staring at the machine. It was saying: … I am ordered to shoot the nominee through the head…” (305). Raymond realizes that he is being manipulated but by then it’s too late. In this interview with Marco, Marco figures out how these people are manipulating Raymond and starts manipulating Raymond himself. And eventually, telling Raymond to kill himself. It also turns out the Raymond’s mother hired Dr. Yen Lo to brainwash her own son and is behind the manipulation the whole time trying to get her husband, John, to be the vice president of the United States. This is just another example of how anyone can manipulate anyone.
Lies. How often do we lie just to hide something? Or manipulate someone? “I don’t want to give you or – uh – the rest of the American people the reassurance that there are only fifty eight Communists high – uh – in the Defense Department.” (128-129). This shows John Iselin lying to the American people that there are communist in the American government. This spreads fear throughout the United States government and the United States itself. This lie also gives Mr. Iselin more popularity to climb in the government. This is just one of the big lies in which John tells the committee to become more popular. May I remind you that this is right in the middle of the Cold War.? In which everyone in the United States was scared out there minds that the communist Russians would bomb America. This was the perfect lie, and it made John Iselin a worldwide star.
The Manchurian Candidateshows us how easy it is to manipulate someone through ways in which that person cannot see. Those ways in which are seen in the book are brainwashing and lying, as well giving some history that actually happened during the cold war. This book also opens up our eyes for us to see how easy it is to manipulate someone and that the most suspected manipulators are the ones in which we do not suspect.
Imagine going to sleep every night not knowing if you were going to wake up in the morning. Imagine dropping your kids off at school, not knowing if you will see them again. Imagine going through your everyday life and you don’t know if bombing sirens will go off or not. Imagine the 1950s. Throughout the 1950s, everything and everyone seemed to be happy despite the Cold War.
During the1950s, American people became to find themselves again in society. Teenagers became more independent, started to fill in the role of rebels, and the trend of fast cars filled their souls. (Wiseman 1). Adults feared the new teenage look because they didn’t know how to react. And even worse society didn’t know how to react. These rebellious teens, historians say, possibly acted this was because of the pre-era of war the past couple decades. So while teenagers took out all there energy that have been built up from the past war years, and parents were busy making a living and trying to figure out how to control these kids, the society of America had a lot on their plate to keep them distracted from the danger of the fact that in any second they could be blown away.
America was starting to slowly progress in the cultural perspective. After World War 2, several thousand soldiers came home to their families and had to pick up on the responsibility of being a family man/women. With a new sense of energy and desire, America’s industry started to expand rapidly to meet the needs of the fast growing country but were being unsuccessful. Americans began buying goods not available during the war, which created corporate expansion and jobs, and thus the baby boom was underway. (Bradley). Televisions were becoming more and more important throughout the 1950s. They were effective because it was an easy way to relay information to the people, as well as receiving investment through advertisement. With news, programs, and sports always on, the American people were easily distracted from the threat of the cold war. Educationally, America wasn’t doing that poorly. In fact, in 1957 the first African- American, Elizabeth Eckford, entered an all-white High School in Arkansas. This was the first step to a long battle over segregation. In schools all around the country, they were teaching there students a drill that would protect them in case they started getting bombed. And to the younger students, this was just any ordinary drill like a fire or tornado drill. At a young age American students were told that communism was bad, democracy was good, and every day at school they stood and spoke “The Pledge of Allegiance. So it was easily shown that the American superiors wanted to get the idea of “communism is bad” early in student’s lives.
In the economic point of view, America prospering after the great depression. It defiantly wasn’t going to be a fast process, but the trend was being set for the future of America. Despite this prosperity and optimism, there are two inflations that occurred before and during the 1950s that cannot be overlooked. One being after World War 2 and one during the Korean War. America new this was going to happen, and had to patiently wait till they bother passed. With the American population started to increase, industries just couldn’t keep up at first. But because of President Eisenhower keeping the focus on the economic growth of this country, things started to look up. Most industries, especially consumer credit, construction and industry, began increasing and soon past record breaking numbers. (Cullin). So even though the economic point of view was as crazy as a roller coaster, there was more than enough to keep Americans at all levels busy and pre-occupied despite the blanket of the cold war almost smothering them.
Despite everything that was going well for America, there was one thing that was in trouble, politics. Politics in America were in panic mode because they had no idea how to handle the situation with the cold war. The Cold War all started, most historians say, after the World War 2. The Soviet Union was at full excitement; sense they just defeated their neighbor rivals, Germany and wanted to express to the world how powerful they were. The fear of communism raced through America like a wild fire, and with the American neighbor, Cuba, flirting with communism, America had to do something. The Bay of Pigs was a failed attempt to take down the man behind the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, who was trying to influence Communism/Dictatorship. When the Soviet Union heard about this, they reacted by producing one of the largest scares, The Cuban Missile Crisis. America flipped out. President John F. Kennedy immediately responded by putting Missiles in Turkey. This produced the ultimate stalemate, and World War 3 was knocking on the door step. Politian’s were in chaos and had no idea on what to do. I mean how could they? Never in American history has a foreign super power threaten the United States this close to home.
Joseph R. McCarthy was a small, Wisconsin republican who would eventually set his name in history. While American politics were so focused on foreign affairs with the Soviet Union and communism, McCarthy saw an opportunity that would boost his popularity to the American people. It was a tactic that nobody would ever have imagined. Some historians even say it could be categorized as treason. McCarthy, “Holding up a piece of paper, he claimed to have in his possession information proving that more than 200 employees in the State Department were card-carrying members of the Communist Party.” (National Archives). In doing so, McCarthy ignited what is known as the “Red Scare.” This was so effective in producing terror all around the United States that President Truman ordered background checks on every known employee in the State Department. McCarthy brainwashed and manipulated the United States in one of the worst lies in history, especially since communism was feared more than anything prior to this statement.
Americans and America itself seemed to be in good spirits and in good shape despite the Cold War. Socially, America’s teenagers becoming more independent seemed like a move that didn’t hurt anyone. It was just the fact it was new to America. Culturally America was stepping in a new era with desegregation and new inventions. Economically the country was a roller coaster, but there was order in the chaos so it didn’t affect America that badly. But politically America had no idea what to do because of panic and inexperience leading them up against the Soviet Union. The 1950s of the United States of America was a time of new beginnings and a period of a great panic.
There can be several connections between the novel, The Manchurian Candidate, which was written about the time period of the 1950s, and the 1950s itself. With the way Codon uses lies, betrayals, manipulations, and even brainwashing gives a sense of what it was like in the 1950s.
Now talking about connections, everything revolves around the political standpoint of the 1950s. The Manchurian Candidate shows the chaos of politics to perfection. Whenever Joseph McCarthy proposed his idea of communism espionage, everyone panicked and he gained popularity with a snap of his fingers. With the names changed around and a different story plot, The Manchurian Candidate has this exact event in the story line. “I said I am United States Senator John Yekes Iselin and I hold here in my hand a list of two hundred ad seven persons who are known to the Secretary of Defense as being members of the Communist party…” ( 125). So after these events, background checks followed. So there was a ton of manipulation and distrust occurring throughout the American political system.
Here is a question that makes you sit down and think: What if we as a people are brainwashing and manipulating ourselves without knowing? Now in the novel, The Manchurian Candidate, main character Raymond Shaw gets brainwashed by Korean and Russian scientists over in Korea. Then when he gets sent back to America, he tries to start influencing communism by attempting to assassinate the president. Now the difference between the 1950s and the present is as different as we may think. During the Cold War, the American people knew about the threat of the Soviet Union, and with events occurring like the red scare, nobody knew if they could trust the government. Now in present day, with attacks like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombings, nobody knows if the government is doing everything to protect us. As well as telling us all the important facts about what is happening with foreign danger. But we still get up every morning, put our clothes on, and walk out the door. Not even giving a second thought that your city could get bombed. The exact same thing happened during the Cold War. So maybe, we as a people, manipulate and brainwash ourselves into believing everything is going to be ok. Of course there is discussions about the events but nobody knows about what’s going on except the politics in the United States.
Or maybe we as a people, in the United States, are manipulated and brainwashed from history into believing that our government isn’t telling the truth. Perhaps the real question is: “History itself is brainwashing and manipulating us?” The Manchurian Candidate reveals lies, manipulation, brainwashing, and betrayals. And in the 1950s, the American people started to distrust what was really happening in the American Government.
“1950s Economics." 1950s Economics. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 May 2014.
This cite was very important for giving me information about the economics of the 1950s. It was a good source because it was a non-biased source.
Bradley, Becky . "1950-1959." American Cultural History. Lone Star College-
Kingwood Library, 1998. Web. 8 May. 2014