Bebop In Leland's Kafka Was The Rage

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Leland described bebop in this way, “ A self-effacing, unserious term, in the shape of a minstrel mask, but doing little to hide the intemperate seriousness underneath the fun”(Leland, p129). Bebop is the main music form of Jazz, which emerged in the 1940s by jazz hipster. Jazz was defined as vulgar music and usually used as dance music until beboppers showed up to promote bebop. The importance of bebop is quite obviously at that era. As Leland mentioned in the book Hip: The History, “Bop presented itself as the opposition: smarter, harder, colder, purer”(Leland,p112).
It’s not hard to imagine that bebop brings the revolution of jazz. “Beboppers held themselves above the tastes of the public”(Leland, p112). Beboppers are fond of creativity …show more content…

In Kafka Was the Rage, Broyard described his life as a hipster. It was 1947, after the world war II. Brossard chose to live in Greenwich Village with Sherri Donatti, who was an abstract painter, rather than to live with his parents in Brooklyn. The Greenwich Village at that time presented the freedom and new ways of thinking, which was the world of artist and writers. There was peace and prosperity and a bright new world for the young. He insists that he is not the voice of the beat generation, however, his behavior can be regarded as the beat generation. He likes going to clubs and having sex with various girlfriends. “I say that sex used to be more individual, more personally marked, than it is now”(Broyard, p141). He thinks that the topic of sex is much different from the past and there is no shame to talk about the sex. Another hipster, Peggy Guggheim, has many common features with Broyard, since she admits that she has many sexual relation with many artists and writers. From my perspective, Broyard and Guggheim are beatnik since they both being free, believe the sexual liberation and being creative, which match the philosophy of beat generation which is conducting of oneself to reject white society, combining experimentation of using drugs and sexual liberation. Beat is the mindset of the beatnik subculture, which related each other. As Leland mentioned in the book, “The beats prescribed an ethos of lifestyle change”(Leland, p153). Beats generation changed a lot and even can easily tell from the clothing.They prefer to wear unusual or exotic dress. Social responsibility for them means nothing and they hate work and study. They disdain social order, against any stereotypes. Chasing freedom, using drugs and having sex is gradually becoming part of their life. Leland described them in this way, “The beats romanticized black life at the margins, imaging it as

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