Literary characters attract, challenge, and entertain us. Stories bring us into fictional worlds where we encounter their lives, their struggles, and their dreams. Why do we care about fictional characters? That question is explored here through the protagonists who appear in significant American novels of the 1950s.

The reading audience and the commercial market for books expanded following the Second World War with the paperback revolution. Fictional characters like Holden Caulfield and Lolita became familiar, iconic figures. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Saul Bellow’s Augie March sought freedom and authenticity. Literature gave readers characters that asserted the courage and strength of the individual confronting the system.

By profiling fictional characters, this volume provides readers with an introduction to the major literary novels of the 1950s. The historical-cultural context of the 1950s in America is explored in connection with the analysis of literary characters that appeared in this decade.