If one contemplates the nature of travel, its purpose and the dynamics of travel itself, one will reach a definitive conclusion. The nature or purpose of travel has not changed in America, the traveler has.
There are numerous reasons why people travel. People yearn to make a connection. Just how one accomplishes such a connection is as varied as the wind. The connection itself is an individualized means of expression. The varied idiosyncratic peculiarities are completely unique to each person; hence no one individual can choose a path for another. One must discover it for oneself. One may claim individuals embark on journeys to experience, learn and understand other cultures. Individualized objectives might include the tasting of new cuisines or the exploration of new lands, but these too are but superficial apologies. These near particulars are not so much reasons in the truest sense, but do serve as an impetus to the journey. People travel to get lost and embrace one’s fears. Embracing one’s fear is resultant in empowering ones resolve pursuant to seeking understanding. It is through this understanding one rediscovers oneself. Thus in rediscovering oneself one discovers truth. The journey itself is forged in the seeking; in the search for “IT”. This “seeking”, as it were has been a persistent restless constant in America, since before the founding of the United States of America; when De Soto first stood on the banks of the Mississippi. This underlying constant is seen in the essential characters throughout the history of America. The beatniks and boomers are no exception.
“On the Road”, by Jack Kerouac defines the spirit of the beatniks and by extension the boomers. It is this spirit which compels one ...
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...implicates the beatnik-boomers as the culprits, the reasoned motive behind the existence of such a ship. The ship provides an altered state copasetic to the self-absorbed, spoiled American tourist’s desire for instantaneous gratification. “... [the American] ultimate fantasy vacation” (Wallace, 264)
Perhaps one would expect an “apologia pro vita sua” from the boomers. A reasonable explanation of where, when, why, how or what changed the direction of the boomers lives is feasibly in order; nay, demanded! Yet none has materialized. One cannot help but wonder if somewhere along the way the beatnik/boomer generation got lost along the way. The beatnik and boomers past has been forgotten and put away, their lives could be likened to the Israelites wandering the desert for forty years. Perhaps the boomers are waiting for their children to show them the way.
The enlightenment period was full of social and intellectual growth. This time period changed the way people thought of the world and exposed the world to different cultures. It brought the world into several revolutions that will later contribute to great change for the modern world. Travel was significant during the enlightenment due to the enlightenment ideas that knowledge and information was gained through experience. In order for the people to get a better understanding of the world and gain information about other cultures, they had to travel to these people. During this era and time period of the enlightenment, travel was significant in order to get a quality and endless education. Denis Diderot shows the significance that travel did
A movement arose among the artists of 1950s America as a reaction to the time's prevailing conformity and affluence whose members attempted to extract all they could from life, often in a strikingly self-destructive way. Specifically, the Beat writers and jazz musicians of the era found escape from society in drugs and fast living. But what exactly led so many to this dangerous path? Why did they choose drugs and speed to implement their rebellion? A preliminary look at the contradictions that prevailed in 1950s American society may give some insight into these artists' world.
Human history has been defined by movement and expansion, as humans slowly moved throughout the globe. Even after humans had populated the entire world, humans continued to travel for many reasons: war, trade, adventure, and religion. It would seem that the human species is filled with inveterate travelers. Throughout history, those nations and civilizations that had the best modes of transportation seemed to have a real competitive advantage. The “northern barbarians” who savaged and conquered much of Europe in its early history, the Greeks, the Romans, and eventually all of Europe in the age of Exploration dominated because they had superior transportation. Horses, boats, and well-built roads are all examples of this general trend. Travel has had a significant impact in human history, and it has also had a significant impact on global ecological history. However, it is not the movement of humans that seems to carry environmental significance. If humans moved throughout the world, empty-handed and naked perhaps the effects of travel would have been minimal. Instead it seems that often the things that humans carried with them caused many more calamities then humans themselves. The plants, animals and technologies, which travelers carry with them often had devastating affects on the environment.
To many, the Baby Boomer Generation is nothing more than a generation of outdated, out of touch, people who went through their lives stoned out of their minds. However, the Boomer generation was much more than that. They were a generation of movers and shakers, a generation of people who, in the wake of the “greatest generation,” brought about a cultural revolution.
Jack Kerouac was one of a group of young men who, immediately after the Second World War, protested against what they saw as the blandness, conformity and lack of cultural purpose of middle-class life in America. The priorities of people of their age, in the mainstream of society, were to get married, to move the suburbs, to have children and to accumulate wealth and possessions. Jack Kerouac and his friends consciously rejected this pursuit of stability and instead looked elsewhere for personal fulfillment. They were the Beats, the pioneers of a counterculture that came to be known as the Beat Generation. The Beats saw mainstream life as a prison. They wanted freedom, the freedom to pick up and go at a moments notice. This search for the true meaning of life was given a literary voice in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, written in 1951 but not published until 1957. This essay will investigate some of the aspects of the novel that make it a forceful and complex rejection of the white middle class American dream.
The 1950‘s was a time noted for its high expectations and widespread conformity. The children growing up in the 1950’s were from the baby boomer generation. By the 1960’s some of these children began to migrate away from the ways of their upbringings. These children called themselves the Hippies. Even though the Hippie kids had grown up in the richest economy America had ever seen, they sought an alternative lifestyle to the one their parents led. This trend spread and eventually progressed into a nationwide movement, popularly known as the Hippie Movement. The Movement created its own entirely new sub culture that enthralled the nation. The Hippie Movement of the 1960’s transformed people’s perspectives on cultural matters, moral values, and created a new unique genre of fine arts.
While the Beats experimented with drugs, they were more mild in their departure from the mainstream culture than the counterculture of the hippies and acid-heads . Tom Wolfe observed that, ““Kerouac was the old star. Kesey was the wild new comet form the West heading Christ knows where”” (Lytle, 4). Even though Kerouac was a major part of the Beat movement and experimented with drugs, he was not cut out for the world of LSD. When considering On the Road, Sal Paradise, does in the end return home to his mother just as Kerouac did when Neal Cassady tried to get him to join Kesey. In Howl, Allen Ginsberg laments over the deprivation of his generation. He addresses one of the roots of the problem, “Moloch whose mind is pure machinery!” (Part II, l.5). He blames the mechanization of the mind, prefer a more steeped in nature approach, drugs as bringing us closer to our own nature The ideas of the Beats echo in the ideas of the counter: a rejection of materialism, an embrace of experimentation with drugs, sexuality, and forms of expression, especially music. The change from the Beats to the Hippies was not so much a ra...
During a time when the population was only around 132 million, versus today’s 318 million, and swing music would fill every room, the children were happier and families were richer. With no problems, society focused on entertainment and passion, leading to a decade of fads reminisced today. Inspiring today’s fashion and music, the 1940’s played an instrumental role in creating history in the American culture. While we still have reminiscence of the $43 billion debt from back then in our trillions, moments such as jitterbug dances and Casablanca reruns define the Swing Era. With life expectancy up in the sixties, people had years of life to live and make the world their own. With discoveries beyond Antarctica and news greater than Truman’s next
Growing up in Midwest America, there is not much to look at. The trees, fields of grass, rolling hills, and small towns offer a dull environment for a teenager. There are hardly any monuments, sculptures, or architectural feats to gaze at in admiration. Ultimately, the Midwest appears very mundane. This monotonous landscape seems to push the idea of a typical lifestyle of conformity; one that customarily consists of attending school, finding a career, and settling down with a family. To fully procure an awareness and acceptance of different lifestyles, one must travel. Whether from town to town or on the other side of the planet, traveling allows a person to see the different cultures, beliefs, and beauties that make up our world; I believe in traveling.
Travel writers or adventurers all write pieces that deal with the same premise: the discovery and experience of the New World. However, in their writing, it is evident that there is an ulterior motive in mind. These motives or purposes can be classified in two broad categories: to persuade people to come to the new world and to warn people of the dangers they may encounter in the new world. It is easy to explore these themes by paying particular attention a couple of notorious writers: Christopher Columbus, Bartolome De Las Casas, and John Smith.
America is epitomized by the world to be the incarnation of “the land of opportunity.” As such, America is a magnet for all those ambitious enough to travel to a foreign country and start their lives anew. Al Capone, who was a first generation American, asserts that the American society allows anyone, re...
... parents, who suffered deprivations during World War II and vowed to give their children the things they didn't have. As teenagers, they experienced the new freedoms and conveniences of the 1960s and '70s everything from civil rights to TV dinners to souped-up American cars. Now, as adults, boomers are juggling adult
During the 1950s to 1960s, a new cultural and literary movement staked its claim on America's national consciousness. The Beat Generation in sheer numbers was never a large movement, but in cultural status and influence, they were more visible than any other contending aesthetics. The years continuing after the Second World War the wholesale reappraisal of conventional structure of society began. During the time the postwar economic boom was taking place, students in universities were beginning to question the excessive materialism of their society. The product of this question was the Beat Generation. Allen Ginsberg, a founding member of the historical movement, like many saw runaway capitalism as destructive to the human spirit and antithetical
The beat generation is known as a post war generation due to its close proximity to the end of WWII. Many members of the post war generations suffer from the lack of a fixed identity, questioning who they are, what they want out of life, and what are their limits. M...
“Thus travel spins us round in two ways at once: It shows us the sights and values and