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jack kerouac and the beat generation
jack kerouac and the beat generation
kerouac
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Jack Kerouac
Born March 12, 1922, to French Canadian parents, Jack Kerouac’s given name was Jean Louis Kirouac. He grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts, surrounded with his two great loves, football and the written word. He spoke a French dialect in which some of his later works were written, finally learning English at school, aged six. His athletic skills later earned him a scholarship to Columbia University. He wrote many pieces for the school paper while a fractured tibia forced him from the team. He later dropped out of Columbia after many arguments with his coach. He remained in the New York City where he met many people whose names are still synonymous with his today, the ‘beat generation’. These people provided him with experience and influenced his writing along with jazz, travel, and spirituality. Jack Kerouac is renowned for many of his pieces including On the Road and Big Sur. He wrote in ‘Spontaneous Prose’.
The story is mostly biographical, with Kerouac portrayed as Sal Paradise whilst his friend, Neal Cassady, was rewritten as Dean Moriarty. It is broken into 5 parts, and is set against the background of many different road trips. The evolution of the two characters and their changing friendship is crucial to the plot. It relates to the time as in those days, young men with no careers or purposes only knew one way to go-the road. It also related to the beat generation.
Excerpt-‘I’d been poring over maps of the United States in Paterson for months, even reading books about the pioneers and savoring names like Platte and Cimarron and so on, and on the road-map was one long red line called Route 6 that led from the tip of Cape Cod clear to Ely, Nevada, and there dipped down to Los Angeles. I’ll just stay on all the ...
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...t beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat,' and whose principal avatar he is."
Review-'On the Road,' reviewed by David Dempsey (1957)"Jack Kerouac has written an enormously readable and entertaining book but one reads it in the same mood that he might visit a sideshow -- the freaks are fascinating although they are hardly part of our lives."
Terms like ‘beautifully executed’ ‘the clearest’ ‘readable’ and ‘entertaining’ have been used to describe this novel. This means that he has managed to do what most authors never managed to do in that time, and he did it well, and that the way it was written, as he told the story straight, was clear and readable. Both touch upon the fact that he is an icon of the ‘beat’ generation, and that his writing was entertaining.
Green uses various literary elements, a few symbolic scenes, constant visual action along with the clever use of “action-reaction” format to let the text flow hence creating potential tension to make sure that the story isn’t dead at any point. The action is mentioned and the protagonist’s immediate reaction keeps the reader involved and complements each other heavily. Green drags the reader right into the text from the very beginning, and very skilfully keeps the reader engaged to the end of the introduction. With varied techniques to convey his message, Green is able to summarize the novel and grab attention in the few opening pages itself.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. There, he attended Saint Paul Academy where his passion for writing began. At thirteen, he completed his first story that was published in the Academy’s newspaper. Later, Fitzgerald moved to New Jersey and attended the Newman school for two years from 1911 to 1913. Fitzgerald went on to attend Princeton University; there he wrote scripts and lyrics for the musicals performed at the University. He also contributed greatly to the Princeton Tiger and Nassau Literary Magazines.
Jack Kerouac, was born on March 12, 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, as the youngest of three children. Jack decided to be a writer after his brother Gerard died at the age of nine. From the life and death experience of his brother's death, and the Catholic faith of his childhood, he developed a spiritual tendency in his character that would last throughout his life. The fact that Kerouac was a spiritual "seeker," may be the most vital aspect of his life. In post WWII, Eisenhower America, Jack Kerouac came from a poor rustic industrial community to change the face of American Culture forever. He chronicled the wild rebellious culture of "the Beats" in the late 50's and early 60's, paving the way for a more accepting American Society and the tolerance of alternative lifestyles enjoyed today.
...nts and characters are masked by the early optimism that is laid down time and time again through Sal Paradise’s narration. This is not to say that the whole novel is defined by pessimism, for Sal and his crew do have fun and do experience a great deal of the American landscape. Sal even seems to find IT when he connects with the intense wilderness of the swamp in Mexico. But in the end, Sal’s discovery of IT only lasts momentarily and he returns to a world that shows little remorse for a disillusioned college kid crossing the continent, underlining the general criticism of this novel as sad. Kerouac’s novel, and the cycle of early hopes to frenzied excitement ending with depressing conclusions, seems to serve as a cautionary tale to warn readers of the sorry state of the world. Kerouac himself supported this idea when he decided to draw away from the world of "beat" of which many consider him the creator. Kerouac’s movement in his life away from the beat lifestyle seems to suggest that, much like Sal’s departure from the life of Dean at the end of the novel, he has experienced the depression of the world and if others do not realize it, he can no longer be a part of it.
One of the most famous of the generation was Jack Kerouac. Kerouac, a writer who was fascinated with jazz, drugs and philosophy embodied this counter culture lifestyle, even taking on the title, “king of the beats.” Wildly passionate for new experiences, Kerouac saw himself as a spy in someone else's body, an observer in/of the world recording through the keyhole of his eye living in such a way that he would eventually document and compose into his masterpiece. Kerouac opened the eyes...
The spaces of the American West are far from uniform, in fact, they could be considered the complete opposite. This variety is what makes the West stand apart from the rest of the United States. The lack of a more common landscape and culture, such as in the American East, provides the backdrop for a plethora of Literary prowess from authors like Jack Kerouac and Douglas Coupland, who saw the American West as the perfect setting for two of the most influential novels of our time. The wide open road was just as much of an inspiration to Kerouac as the concrete megalopolises of malls, fast food, and tracts homes were to Coupland. Western culture would be fraction of what it is today if not for its exceptional diversity among space.
Cormac McCarthy manifests his novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic world on the east coast of the once famous America. The novel tells the simple tale of a man and a boy who must journey forward to find a way to survive in the wastelands. However, when analyzed with the techniques shown in Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, The Road’s complex structure in unveiled. The once simple journey transforms into a quest filled with exploitive vampires and meaningful conversations with food. The novel explores the depths of heart and strengthens the end with the parallel of the return of Jesus Christ. The concepts complete the novel as a whole and brings an interesting
When a writer picks up their pen and paper, begins one of the most personal and cathartic experiences in their lives, and forms this creation, this seemingly incoherent sets of words and phrases that, read without any critical thinking, any form of analysis or reflexion, can be easily misconstrued as worthless or empty. When one reads an author’s work, in any shape or form, what floats off of the ink of the paper and implants itself in our minds is the author’s personality, their style. Reading any of the greats, many would be able to spot the minute details that separates each author from another; whether it be their use of dialogue, their complex descriptions, their syntax, or their tone. When reading an excerpt of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast one could easily dissect the work, pick apart each significant moment from Hemingway’s life and analyze it in order to form their own idea of the author’s voice, of his identity. Ernest Hemingway’s writing immediately comes across as rather familiar in one sense. His vocabulary is not all that complicated, his layout is rather straightforward, and it is presented in a simplistic form. While he may meander into seemingly unnecessary detail, his work can be easily read. It is when one looks deeper into the work, examines the techniques Hemingway uses to create this comfortable aura surrounding his body of work, that one begins to lift much more complex thoughts and ideas. Hemingway’s tone is stark, unsympathetic, his details are precise and explored in depth, and he organizes his thoughts with clarity and focus. All of this is presented in A Moveable Feast with expertise every writer dreams to achieve. While Hemingway’s style may seem simplistic on the surface, what lies below is a layered...
On the Road by Jack Kerouac, author during the Beats’ generation, is largely considered a novel that defined a generation. Despite this consideration, however, there are very many controversies linked to this book. Though many call the novel offensive, unexciting, and poorly written, Kerouac deserves the entirety of the acclamations he has received over the years as the result of his roman á clef. Along with literary classics such as The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Grapes of Wrath; On the Road has historically been challenged and even banned in classroom settings. If a novel is challenged, that means it has a message that breaks the status quo and pushes the boundaries of literature. On the Road objects stigmas about casual sex, the drug culture, poverty, capitalism and what it meant to be living in 1960’s America.
Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is set sometime in the future after a global disaster in which tells a story of a nameless boy and father who both travel along a highway that stretches to the East coast. This post-apocalyptic novel shows the exposes of terrifying events such as cannibalism, starvation, and not surviving portraying the powerful act of the man protecting his son from all the events in which depicts Cormac McCarthy’s powerful theme of one person sacrificing or doing anything humanly possible for the one they love which generates the power of love.
On The Road is an autobiographical first-person book written in 1951 and based on Kerouac's experiences of the late 1940's. At the time, America was undergoing drastic changes and the sense of sterility brought on by a mechanized Cold War era society resu lted in a feeling of existential dislocation for many. Numerous Americans began to experience a sense of purposelessness and the air was rife with disillusionment. Kerouac was one of these restless postwar young people and he longed for...something. A n ew kind of hero? A return to a Romantic tradition and simpler days? When Kerouac met Neal Cassady, he knew Cassady was the kind of hero he had been seeking. Eventually, as Robert Hipkiss notes, "Kerouac began to see Neal as an 'archetypal American Man' "....and, in fact, when Kerouac created Dean Moriarty out of Neal, "he created a new symbol of flaming American youth, the American hero of the Beat Generation" (32-3). Indeed, as Hipkiss argues, Dean Moriarty
In Jack Kerouac's On The Road, Sal Paradise is a man who was fed up with his life and what was expected of him. He was no longer content to sit around and allow society to dictate to him whom he should be and how he should act. It was at this time in his life that Sal met Dean Moriarty who saw that he was ripe for influence. Sal didn't necessarily know exactly what he wanted, but he knew he needed change. Dean became his "guru" in that Sal knew that Dean would teach him about life and lead him on great adventures that would help him discover the world around him and what he wanted out of it. Sal was ready for something more. He comes to this realization while riding on the bus with Dean through the Lincoln Tunnel.
Jack Kerouac's *On the Road* follows Sal Paradise, the narrator, in his adventures across America around 1950. Sal's purpose for taking to the road was to seek out people with the characteristics of freedom and individuality to better his own persona but instead fulfilled the image that he was trying to escape from: another American following the typical "day in the life," living with a false sense of what the "American dream" really is Sal meets a friend early on, Dean Moriarty, whom Sal admires greatly for his seemingly careless attitude and sense for adventure. Dean seems likes the perfect travel companion for Sal, it's whom he wants to be more like. The journey starts off already contradicting its own purpose. Why would one person leave their home and friends to go on the road following someone, going against what individuality and freedom stand for? The American dream is what drives Sal to explore various parts of the country, in search of what hasn't been discovered yet (so they think). Sal's direction is not well thought out and is misguided. The idea of freedom is not what he thinks it means; he doesn't want freedom, he wants a change of pace or environment.
In Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’, the protagonists embark upon a long, arduous quest for human identity. Their aim is to uncover who they truly are, where they fit in the ‘scheme of things’ and what the meaning of life is. They articulate this desire by speaking, during the novel, of the search for ‘IT’, ‘IT’ being human identity. This ‘IT’ is an intangible thing; something that holds a different meaning for every individual. It encompasses all the things humans yearn for – life answers, the meaning of the universe, happiness, enlightenment, self-fulfilment, ‘beatification’ (as articulated by Kerouac). ‘On the Road’ is the story of a desperate search for ‘IT’, in which the protagonists finally come to realise that ‘IT’ is unattainable and time cannot be defied.
Released more than a decade apart, Kerouac's On the Road and Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider are replete with parallels. Both depict characters whose beliefs are not quite uniform with those of society; in both cases these characters set out in search of "kicks" but become part of something larger along the way. More importantly, these two texts each comment insightfully on the culture of their respective times. But all these similarities become superficial in the face of the inherent differences between the two.