Put on the margins? The mainstream culture and the alienated writer in the fifties

Abstract

The Fifties were the dawning of the age of the New Zealand homeowner, of prosperous families, suburbia and consumerism. Conformity and conservatism determined all aspects of social life. It is commonly believed that the dominant cultural mainstream, in an attempt to uphold patterns of conformity, has marginalised those who resisted the social norm. Writers, artists and intellectuals, according to this version of events, have been forcefully put on the margins of society. A general lack of scholarship about the Fifties does not allow one to establish how true an account of cultural relations this really is. Through perusal of two prominent periodicals this study aims to offer a more detailed picture of the relation between the writer and the cultural mainstream. Most importantly it establishes that not all writers experienced a conflict with the surrounding mainstream culture, only a handful in fact did. Those writers chose to be on the margins, and from there they rejected the mainstream culture for various reasons. Conservatism, attitudes regarding the family and conformity were main factors in creating hostility towards the mainstream. Later historians, most notably Keith Sinclair, have subsequently delivered an account of the Fifties that placed exaggerated emphasis on the opinions of those few writers.