Mary Jane

A 21st-century reader of Mary Jane might have trouble understanding the extreme reaction of the Dillard parents to their daughter’s involvement with the Cones and their house guests. To appreciate the controversy, an exploration of American counterculture may be helpful. The counterculture movement began in the mid-1960s and continued through the early 1970s. Today, its ideology is so interwoven with mainstream American thought that we fail to recognize the radical revolution that the counterculture represented during the years when it first emerged.

After World War II ended, American soldiers married and fled to the suburbs to raise their families. The attempt to reestablish normality resulted in an overwhelming emphasis on upholding the status quo. The children of these soldiers, baby boomers, were coming of age during the 1960s when several different influences converged to make them question the values of their parents.

The mid and late 1960s represented a period of turmoil during which the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum, as did the call for women’s liberation. At the same time, the country had become involved in an unpopular war in Vietnam that sparked national protests. Simultaneously, students on college campuses became more politically active in liberal causes than previous generations and insisted on their right to free speech. The repressive response of authority figures led to widespread demonstrations.

Even as conservative political values were challenged, the arts echoed the call for change. As early as 1957, when Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips were censored on the Ed Sullivan Show, the music industry was leaving behind more sedate forms of expression. Acid rock achieved wide appeal, as did experimentation with drugs in general. Timothy Leary’s advocacy of LSD to alter and expand consciousness fed into the mood of America’s younger generation. Leary struck a chord with statements like “Think for yourself and question authority.” The music festival at Woodstock represented the apogee of this ethos.

While the younger generation was moving away from traditional values, American political control remained firmly in the hands of conservatives. However, the Watergate scandal of 1972-1974 further disillusioned America’s youth and eroded their trust in authority. In Mary Jane, the Dillard household displays a picture of President Gerald Ford on the wall, signaling their allegiance to conservative values. Any average American middle-class home at the time might have done the same. However, Mary Jane Dillard steps out of her conservative upbringing and straight into American counterculture from the moment she first walks through the door of the Cone house.

Just as America needed to find a way to reconcile the younger generation's rebellion with mainstream views, Mary Jane must find a middle ground between the values of her conservative parents and the liberalism of her new friends. Woodstock and the summers of love surrounding it expressed the feelings of American counterculture youth, while 1975 becomes Mary Jane’s personal summer of love. The experience changes her life profoundly. To its credit, the novel doesn’t attempt to reject the conservative past but tries to bring it gently into the present. In this respect, it mirrors the struggle of the country as a whole to reconcile its traditional values with flower power.