"The Runaway" Norman Rockwell

Thesis: Rockwell's "The Runaway" overlooks the fundamental rift that was rising in America throughout the late 1950's-an emerging counter (no pun intended) culture that was not concerned with how things were in America, but rather how they are.

In Rockwell's painting, a young boy has presumably run away from home to make a new life for himself, but a police officer found him and took him to lunch before-hopefully-taking him home again. In the time period that this was painted, many people who came home from the war seemed to be doing the same thing: making a new life for themselves. Although it was doubtful that a police officer figure came into their lives and took them back to the way it used to be, it showed that people began to take control of their lives and how their futures would be shaped instead of depending on the past to define it for them. Rockwell's "The Runaway" overlooks the fundamental rift that was rising in America throughout the late 1950's-an emerging counter (no pun intended) culture that was not concerned with how things were in America, but rather how they are.