The Influence Of Literature In The 1960's

In the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee said “People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.” The people of the counterculture knew what they wanted: to end the Vietnam War, have racial equality, and give women equal rights. They were looking for new opportunities and listening for people who would tell them that some of the freedoms they had found were okay; even if before then they had been socially or morally unacceptable. Some of the people they started listening to were authors. These authors said things that the people were listening for. They influenced people’s actions, not only in their generation, but also in future generations. Literature from the 1960’s influenced our culture not only back in the sixties but has also lead our country to where it is today.

The top 10 books of the 60s in order from 1-10 are: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Outsiders, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A Wrinkle in Time, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Catch-22, Green Eggs and Ham, In Cold Blood, and Where the Wild Things Are. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most influential books. It has been translated into over 40 different languages, has a movie adaptation, and over a million copies are sold every year. Another popular one is Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. One of the reason’s it was so popular in the 60s is because it had countercultural themes in it, it also brought to light many problems in psychiatric care. Lastly, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote was an especially interesting novel because it was nonfiction. One of the most difficult aspects of writing this book was getting all the facts right, but still making the book interesting and exciting to read, without it sounding like a newspaper