The Demise of Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. Unlike other authors from his time, Kerouac employed imaginative creativity to describe his stories related to his lifestyle of drugs, women, and traveling. Born in a Middle-class family in Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac learned French as a first language from his French Canadian parents and spoke it solely until he was six. During his childhood, his older brother died and the death affected Kerouac. Raised with Catholic and Middle-class values, Kerouac attended a Catholic school and played football as a running back in high school. Kerouac received a scholarship to play football at Columbia University. After a foot injury and an invitation to fight in WWII, Kerouac quit football and left the
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Returning from his terrible experience in the war, Kerouac met Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, two of the first Beat writers, and decided to travel across the country in pursuit of inspiration for his novels. During his travels, alongside his close friend Neal Cassady, he married and divorced two women and conceived a child during one of these marriages. Kerouac suffered more disappointments through harsh criticism from literary writers for his unusual style of writing and developed an alcohol addiction. His alcohol addiction affected his public image, his personal life, and his health. After months of drinking alcohol constantly, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage on October 21, 1969, at 47 years of age. The constant criticism from the literary writers and the media and his unsuccessful relationships caused Kerouac’s
Peter Salem : a slave who was freed by his owner, Jeremiah Belknap, to join the Framingham militia in Massachusetts. He was a patriot for over seven years, supporting the Americans fight the British, and became a militia himself and served for four years and eight months. In 1775, Peter took part in fighting the war’s first battle at Concord. He enrolled in Captain Drury’s Company of John Nixon’s 6th Massachusetts Regiment. He also took part in the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he mortally wounded British Marine Major, John Pitcairn. Then in 1776, he reenlisted for another year in the 4th Continental Regiment. After his enlistment was over, he volunteer for three years in the 6th Massachusetts Regiment of Colonel Thomas Nixon. Achievement : Contribute to Concord battle(1775), Battle of the Bunker Hill(1775), and the Battles of Saratoga and Stony Point(1777).
Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums does not fall too far from a basic description of his life. Kerouac spent the bulk of his writing career riding trains from city to city, meeting people and writing books and poetry. He was among the premier writers of the Beat Generation, a group of primarily urban poets and writers who put the basics of life and their spiritual nuances into poetry with a beat. The book, The Dharma Bums, is a window into the daily structure of the Beat Generation.
When he was fifteen years old his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career. He had the knowledge of philosophy and psychology. He attempted to write when he was a youth, but he made a choice to pursue a literary career in 1919. After he published Cane he became part of New York literary circles. He objected both rivalries that prevailed in the fraternity of writers and to attempts to promote him as a black writer (Clay...
In his formative teenage years, Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. He especially enjoyed english class and writing in general. Lee recalls in an interview that, “From a young age, I was interested in becoming a writer...and dreamed of writing the next Great American Novel (Kugel).” In order to achieve that dream, Lee needed to obtain a typewriter, so he worked many different jobs. Some of which included selling newspapers, delivering sandwiches, writing ads and obituaries for the local paper, and three other jobs.
...ptly stricken by an illness which landed him in the hospital. He died on April 9, only two months before his 92nd birthday.
The bestseller and witnessing the hanging of Smith and Hickock had taken a toll on him both physically and psychologically (Bio). When it was over, Capote confessed, "I would never do it again . . . If had known what that book was going to cost in every conceivable way, emotionally, I never would have started it" (DISC). Capote began drinking more, using drugs, and later developed an addiction to taking tranquilizers used to calm his nerves. His substance abuse problems escalated over the coming years (Bio; St. James). Some people attribute Capote's escalating physical and emotional problems to the acute stress he suffered during the project (St. James). H his general health deteriorated alarmingly. The once “sylphlike and youthful Mr. Capote” became sickly and paunchy. In the late 1970's he went into rehabilitation, had prostate surgery and was affected with a painful facial nerve condition (Krebs). Truman Capote died on Aug. 25, 1984 at the age of 59, and he was revealed to have overdosed on pills. His autopsy fixed the cause of death as liver disease, ”complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication.” (EW). No one disputes Capote's contribution to literature as a writer who taught reporters how to rethink what they do when they ostensibly record "just the facts." (St.
After two years of school at Columbia Kerouac made a decision that would change his life. He always believed he learned more outside of the classroom than in; and so after a series of arguments with his coach, he quit the team. Not long after he dropped out of school as well. He served briefly in the navy, and drinking heavily, was discharged on psychiatric grounds(Clark, 52). Upon his return home he got a job with as a Merchant Marine. When he wasn't working he spent his time with Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cass...
In pre-Beat Generation America, anyone who looked could find a whole society of people who, for the most part, were afraid to do the things they dreamed, unable to break from conformity. Kerouac saw this all around him, and with On the Road, he responds. He presents a tale of those who flee conformity successfully and without any significant negative consequences. Clearly, his audience consists of members of society who remain content with conventional societal norms, who are too squeamish to do what they want. To them he argues that they ought to assert their personal identity rather than be bound by an imposed social one, that they ought to follow their own desires rather than succumb to society's.
288-293. ed. a. Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Kerouac, Jack.
Line of duty death are terrible but they can be prevented by following the right procedure. Kyle Dinkheller was sheriff who made a couple mistakes which cost him his life. First he let the suspect get out of his car before the deputy ask him to. Second, he let the suspect feel like he was in charged in the traffic stop. Third, he let the suspect return to his vehicle after he was being uncooperative. Lastly, Dinkheller should more training with his weapon.
Jack Kerouac's On The Road is the most uniquely American novel of its time. While it has never fared well with academics, On The Road has come to symbolize for many an entire generation of disaffected young Americans. One can focus on numerous issues wh en addressing the novel, but the two primary reasons which make the book uniquely American are its frantic Romantic search for the great American hero (and ecstasy in general), and Kerouac's "Spontaneous Prose" method of writing.
Jack London is the name you can hear everywhere, his writing appealed to millions of people all around the world. London was an American novelist and short-story writer, who wrote passionately about questions of life and death, surviving. The writer had a lot of adventures, experienced the life at sea, or in Alaska, or in the fields and factories of California, all of these influenced his writing style. Jack London descended from the family of his mother Flora and astrologer and journalist William Chaney. The writer has got his education by himself and with help of a librarian Ina Coolbrith - he has a passion to read books at public libraries. Later in life, Jack finally graduated from high school in Oakland. Jack London's work carrier was so variable, he has been a laborer, factory worker, and oyster pirate on the San Francisco Bay, member of the California Fish Patrol, sailor, railroad hob, and gold prospector. Yes, gold prospecting was the big part of his life, when the young writer with his brother-in-law sailed to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he would set his first successful stories. Jack London was a hard-worker, he tried never miss his early morning 1,000-word writing stint, what helped him to write over fifty books between 1900 and 1916. In addition to it, he corresponded with his readers, and made huge researches for improving his writing style, what is, obviously, genius. The consequences of such a hard work became the fact that Jack London had become the best selling, highest paid and most popular American author of his time. Many authors and social advocates have been inspired by Jack London’s heartfelt prose, and readers travel and experience so much through his books.
Dardess, George. "The Delicate Dynamics of Friendship: A Reconsideration of Kerouac's On The Road." American Literature. v46: 200-206. 1974.
Samuel Beckett was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, he is most known for his stories dealing with absurdity and black humor. Beckett was born in Ireland in 1906. As a child Beckett suffered from depression, causing him stay in bed till the afternoon sometime. Beckett even said that as a child he had a hard time finding happiness in life. Later on he attended college at Trinity College where he received his Bachelors degree in 1927. In 1928 Beckett moved to Paris, France where he became a devoted student to author James Joyce who was a well-known author for stories like “Dubliner” and “Ulysses”. Beckett lived in Paris during World War II and had a large part in the French Resistance; after the end of the War he wrote
John Keats was born in London on October 31, 1795. He was the son of a stable attendant who married the owner's daughter and later inherited the stable for himself. The elder Mr. Keats died when John was eight, leaving the family tied up in legal matters that lasted the rest of John's life. He was fourteen when his mother died of tuberculosis, and fifteen when his guardian apprenticed him to an apothecary-surgeon. Soon after, John left the medical field to focus primarily on poetry.