"yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars" (Ginsberg 11). Like many authors of the modern literature movement, Allen Ginsberg explores the bomb's psychological affects on many Americans during the 1960s. Modern literature describes the chaos of the 1960s, caused by increasing societal problems and fear of the new atomic bomb. Writings such as The Basketball Diaries, "Howl" and Cat's Cradle express concepts of fear, power, governmental control, and death. Government uses society's fear of death and the end of the world to keep control and power over the people. The atomic bomb generates such universal fear and the corrupted government fails to respond to the chaotic behavior of society or the fears of the individuals. This fear that the government achieves not only maintains control, but also causes chaos and the false belief that the government is on the public's side. The chaotic environment is a result of people crying out for help and the conflicting lifestyles arise when people face the terror of death.
Historically, fear has been used to control populations. For example, asearly as the 1700s, white men controlled black slaves through the fear of being killed. During slave days, in the South, the ratio was nine blacks to every white person (Nash and Graves 213). When Nat Turner, a black slave, finally revolted, the United States government responded by sending the army with tanks and guns to resist the black men. The reaction of the whites imbedded the fearof revolts within the slaves. The blacks could have successfully revolted, but were controlled by the fear of the powerful white man. The white man held the power and con...
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...ld such dangers have any significance to life? Jim Carroll tells the real story of his fear of the end and the mixed feelings of what matters, what doesn't. His fear is accompanied by confusion of how to live, today, with the possibility of being killed tomorrow.
Throughout "Howl," The Basketball Diaries, and Cat's Cradle it is evident that the government controlled society with the fear of the bomb. We can see how this fear influenced individuals and society as a whole. The government caused the fear in society by possessing the atomic bomb and ignoring problems arising. Society blaimed the people for their reactions to the fear of the bomb. Furthermore, the government presented itself as protector, leading to increased confusion and chaos. In modern society, deciding who is the enemy and who holds the power, determines who controls the fate of the world.
The atomic bomb created under the Manhattan Project set a new level of psychological panic. It influence media, government, and daily lives of those all around the world. The media was covering stories about protection from a nuclear attack and the government was right next to the reporters helping to further the creation of fear with their messages about preparation.
In every society, throughout all of time fear is present. It is a an evolutionary instinct thought to have kept us alive, throughout the darkest moments in human history. However as time has progressed fear has had an unintended consequences on society, including the suffusion of incomprehension. During the Salem Witch Trials and Cold War a large sense of fear overcame these societies causing tragedy and misinformation to become commonplace. It is in these societies that it is clear that fear is needed to continue a trend of ignorance. Although bias is thought to be essential to injustice, fear is crucial to the perpetuation of ignorance because it blinds reason, suppresses the truth and creates injustice.
In the season two episode two, Marcus Lemonis takes a visit to A. Stein Meat Products that is fabricated Beef and Lamb Cuts. The whole sale meat supplier is in Brooklyn, New York and it does 50 million dollars of revenue annually with a high operating costs in razor thin margins. The A. Stein Meat Products has been selling their quality meats for about 75 years to the finest restaurants along with shipping their products all over the country. In the last year they lost $400,000 if it continues the A. Stein Meats will be forced to close its business and with about 47 employees will be out of work.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.” The opening lines of Howl, by Allan Ginsberg, melodiously encapsulates the beat generation. The beats alluded to by the verbatim ,“The best minds”, are a group of idiosyncratic poets whom through the instrument of prose(driven by spontaneity and a primal lifestyle) , orchestrated a rebellion against the conservative beliefs and literary ideals of the 1950s. Howl, utilizing picturesque imagery, expounds holistically upon the instigator of the movement in culmination with personal experiences of beat members. Accordingly “Howl” evokes feelings of raw emotional intensity that reflects the mindset in which the poem was produced. The piece is structured into three stanzas, sacrificing temporal order for emphasis on emotional progression. The first sequence rambles of rampant drug forages and lewd sexual encounters, eliciting intonations of impetuous madness, one ostensibly hinging upon on a interminable need for satiation of hedonistic desires. Concordantly the following stanza elucidates upon the cause of the aforementioned impulsive madness (i.e corruption of the materialistic society motivated by capitalism), conveying an air of hostility coalesced with quizzical exasperation. Yet, the prose concludes by turning away from the previous negative sentiments. Furthermore, Ginsberg embraces the once condemned madness in a voice of jubilation, rhapsodizing about a clinically insane friend while ascertaining the beats are with him concerning this state of der...
Fear motivates many people to act upon matters, right or wrong. This emotion has been important in many events in both works of literature, and in the real world. It has forced military geniuses into retreat, and influenced them to plan another method of attack. Fear can be both a positive and a negative acting force in one’s life, a quality that can motivate one to success as well as to downfall.
With graphic depictions of sexual acts, vivid descriptions of drug use, and deliberate defense of all things mad in his poem, Howl, Allen Ginsberg sent shock waves throughout conservative 1950’s America. He champions the counter-culture Beat generation in the face of oppressive mainstream conformity. As we continue to battle with issues surrounding free speech and upholding “traditional” American ideals today, Ginsberg’s free-verse masterpiece still wields the power to shock and awe its audiences.
In today’s world, people can do limitless things and reach huge achievements in their lifetimes. However, there seems to be a constant hindrance to these doings, essentially keeping them in check and preventing limitless power. Fear works like disease, seemingly harmless at first until it consumes a body, preventing activity and happiness from the sick person. In most cases and given a severe enough sickness, the afflicted is not able to get better without outside intervention through medical aid from a hospital or doctor. Such is the same for fear, where it can grow to be unbeatable, consuming an entire person. Fear plays a large part as an oppressive and consistent force, shown in Alan Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country, which can entirely
In addition, the Cold War is what brought this fear. Elaine Tyler May says that it has become an obsession to gain security. She says that because of fear, movements, such as feminism and black equality, prevented these individuals from being fully accepted into society as equals. I believe that fear has only distracted America from these movements of becoming fully successful. The article also refers to America being less of a democracy by citizens refusing to have faith in their government and refusing to trust one another. Reputedly, fear is what shaped America the way it is
Cognition is your thoughts. Affect is how you feel. Behavior is how you act. Generally, your behavior will show your cognitive and affective traits. If I am thinking (cognition) about my cat I will feel love and happiness (affect), so I will probably cuddle her (behavior) when I am home. Even if she did bite my toe this morning. Cognition, affect, and behavior are all connected. If you have to complete a task (behavior) you have to think about how, why, and when (cognition) how you will complete the task, and most likely you will have feelings about the task you are going to complete
He goes on to explain that all he has left is pocket change, which is little consolation for the mind he has lost. It is from this point on that Ginsberg explores the resentment he feels toward America, and why he can't succumb to the complacency that grips the rest of the population. One of the most blatant, and effective social commentaries lies in the line, "Go *censored* yourself with your atom bomb." (P-M 368) The Cold War raged as Ginsberg penned this work, and every facet of American culture reflected in some way the fear associated with nuclear destruction.
Another source of knowledge is from the experiential accounts of project practitioners [49]. These works are important in that, unlike theory, they offer empirical evidence based on personal experience and observations.
Many of Vonnegut’s early stories and novels contain science fiction, dystopian, and satirical elements; he questions developments of contemporary society, such as the trend toward mechanization, but also pokes fun at timeless human folly. Cat’s Cradle, published just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war, pulls together all these elements to form a quasi-realistic story that incorporates actual historical events, such as the development of the atomic bomb. In its mingling of science fiction and historical fact, Cat’s Cradle presages Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), the novel most often acknowledged as Vonnegut’s masterpiece.
It is a quiet, Saturday afternoon, and the overcast humidity of the air gives me an obscene sense of nonchalance. Time in hand, I peruse a ‘Survival Handbook’, a sort of “Pessimist’s Guide to the World”. It was given to me as a Christmas present, and its perverse implication of Murphy’s Law amuses me. I would assume that its pleasant uselessness would appeal to all who share my insatiable appetite for superfluous information. A smile creeps onto my face as I remember the one objective truth about this world: “Anything that can go wrong, will”.
Allen Ginsberg is one of the most prominent voices of the Beat Generation. The Beat culture consists of rejection of established standards, experimentation with various drugs, expression of different sexualities and exploration of distinctive religious beliefs. As a leading figure of the Beat Generation; Ginsberg opposes conformity, authorities and sexual repression, but favors travels, various religions and freedom of self-expression. This attitude can be clearly seen in the title, structure and theme of his epic poem Howl. The poem consists of explicit portrayals of the frustration and self-destruction suffered by the artistic minds of his generation. Due to its revolutionary sexual, social, political and religious ideas, the poem remains as the great work of American Literature.
Allen Ginsberg dives into the wreck of himself and of the world around him to salvage himself and something worth saving of the world. In this process, he composes Howl to create a new way of observation for life through the expression of counterculture. Protesting against technocracy, sex and revealing sexuality, psychedelic drugs, visionary experience, breaking the conventions of arts and literature; all basic characteristics of counterculture are combined and celebrated in Howl, as it becomes `a counterculture manifesto' for the first time. Howl elaborates the results of technocracy, as it mechanizes the human soul, human creativity. Technocracy takes away the emotion, feeling, random combination of creative thoughts from human mind and makes the human race depended on technology and mechanized society. Howl explicitly discusses sex and Ginsberg's own homosexual orientation. Mostly there is a sense of despair and desperation about sex. In this poem, there is a visionary experience mainly influenced by Zen, a Buddhist notion emphasizing on meditation and insight, a popular religion among young Americans. Howl reveals the secrets of drugs. There are references of incidents related to drugs and its effects. The attention is on psychedelic state of mind and personal experiences regarding drugs. Howl itself is breaking the literary convention of poetry by its being a genre of inspiration poetry. And it pays homage to arts in a very different way. Ginsberg sees America and feels the madness going through the veins of the country. Howl was an underground poetry; outlawed poetry but still it conferred a strange power. There are something wonderfully subversive about Howl, something the p...