"The Runaway" by Norman Rockwell

In the painting "The Runaway" by Norman Rockwell, there is a boy at a diner talking to a police officer and the man behind the counter. The boy has a bandana tied to a stick with supplies inside, so we assume that he is a runaway. The expressions and body language of the police officer and the man behind the counter suggest that they do not expect the boy to follow through with his plan and return home once he has thought things through. However, the rising counter culture in the 1950s suggests that the boy will follow through with his plan and be in serious danger. Rockwell overlooks the fundamental rift that was rising in America in the 1950s - an emerging counter-culture that was not concerned with how things were in America but rather how they are.