120 feet long”(Jack). Another protagonist, Dean Moriarty, was inspired by a Neal Cassady that Kerouac met during his early life. Cassady is described as “an uneducated drifter and a manic depressive with a magnetic personality”(Literary Themes for Students). This is parallel to Dean Moriarty's personality in On the Road. Kerouac heavily based Dean off of Neal Cassady because of the influence he had on his life. “Neal Cassady (AKA Dean Moriarty) claimed to have stolen 500 cars between ages of 14-21
evident in On The Road, is a reflection of societal attitudes of the time. Works Cited and Consulted: Bartlett, Lee. The Beats: Essays in Criticism. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. 1981. Cassady, Carolyn. Heartbeat: My Life With Jack and Neal. Berkeley: Creative Arts Books Company. 1976. Cassady, Neal. "Letter to Jack Kerouac." March 7, 1947. Challis, Chris. Quest For Kerouac. London: Faber and Faber Limited. 1984. Dardess, George. "The Delicate Dynamics of Friendship: A Reconsideration
compilation of original footage shot by Ken Kesey and his friends, known as the Merry Pranksters, follows their cross country bus trip in 1964 from California to New York to see the World’s Fair. Besides Kesey, the most well-known Prankster was Neal Cassady, who was the inspiration for Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and the driver for the first leg of the journey. The film begins with a short biography of Kesey, a writer known for his novels “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Sometimes
el, it is there as a reflection of his belief system and the attitudes of the time. Works Cited Page Bartlett, Lee. The Beats: Essays in Criticism. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. 1981. Cassady, Carolyn. Heartbeat: My Life With Jack and Neal. Berkeley: Creative Arts Books Company. 1976. Cassady, Neal. "Letter to Jack Kerouac." March 7, 1947. Challis, Chris. Quest For Kerouac. London: Faber and Faber Limited. 1984. Dardess, George. "The Delicate Dynamics of Friendship: A Reconsideration
Jack Kerouac, the author of On the Road, was a French American man that was born in America. This novel follows Kerouac’s character, Sal, and his friends as they travel through America. Kerouac’s novel is an autoethnographic piece of writing. The autoethnography in the writing shapes the novel into a study of Kerouac’s life and personal experiences through his characters. By writing this novel, the readers are able to see what Kerouac experienced in America. By blending this idea and genre, Kerouac
from Denver named Neal Cassady. Kerouac had already begun writing a novel, stylistically reminiscent of Thomas Wolfe, inspired by his struggle to try and balance his city life with his family values. Entitled The Town and the City, his first published book earned him respect and some recognition as a writer, but did not make him famous.It would be a long time before he would be published again. In this transitional period. Kerouac took several cross-country trips with Neal Cassady while working on
A rejection of normal social values, exploration of religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of humanity, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation; this is none other than the beat generation. The beat generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors, including Allen Ginsberg, whose work influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. This unusual movement was started by Allen Ginsberg and his friends William Burroughs and
The Degradation of Women in On The Road An argument can be made that the women in Jack Kerouac's On The Road are not as characteristically well developed as the men. Through Sal and Dean's interactions with women, the reader sees that there exist two types of females in this novel - the benevolent virgin/mother figure or the whore. Women are constantly referred to in a negative way or blatantly degraded and insulted by numerous characters. However, Kerouac (through the character of Sal) exhibits
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
"The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death." (Kerouac, Jack. “On the road.”). This quote, from Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road, is a brilliant example of the overall feel of the Beat Generation. Jack Kerouac is one of the most influential writers of the Beat Generation, rivaled
Burroughs, and Neal Cass... ... middle of paper ... ...ectric...). Kerouac, though, was a conservative at heart and avoided the psychedelic drug movement (Clark, 193). This eventually to Kerouac being despised by even those who's careers he began, and lives he had changed. In one meeting one of the Merry Pranksters had covered a couch with a flag. Ginsberg watched Kerouac slowly fold it up and "marveled sadly... history was... out of Jack's hands now," (Clark, 201). Neal Cassady died of
Ginsberg's Howl: a Counterculture Manifesto 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
Bea... ... middle of paper ... ...ons of writers before them (“Beat Generation”). Kerouac is also characterized by writing in a raw manner, rather than being what was considered “cool.” Kerouac was inspired to do so by Neal Cassady’s explicit letters to him. He urged Cassady to write his works as he would write those letters. Kerouac’s influence led to Cassady’s presence in the Beat Generation (Leland). In 1957, Howl and Other Poems was seized by customs officials and tried for obscenity. The
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
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
the New West is a main reason behind the effectiveness of Coupland’s Generation X. Without the spaces of the American West the comedic genius of Portlandia would be nonexistent! In an attempt to overcome writers’ block, Jack Kerouac, alongside Neal Cassady, explored the American West in a series of adventures that spanned from 1947 to 1950. On the Road is the “lovechild” of Kerouac and Cassady’s escapades, fueled by jazz, poetry, and drug use. Its political and aesthetic dimensions are thoroughly
The Beat Generation was an influence on the American society during the twentieth century on how they portrayed the way of the American dream through performing arts. It all began in the 1950’s where a bunch of writers got together to right about how much they resented the postwar society (Sterritt, 1). It was right after War World II had past and the postwar age was very unsettling for the beat writers. It was turning into a conservative lifestyle and the beats wanted a way of showing that there
Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Allen Ginsberg's Howl Works Cited It was a 1951 TIME cover story, which dubbed the Beats a ‘Silent Generation, ’ that led to Allen Ginsberg’s retort in his poem ‘America,’ in which he vocalises a frustration at this loss of self- importance. The fifties Beat Generation, notably through Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl as will here be discussed, fought to revitalise individuality and revolutionise their censored society which seemed to produce
The "Beat Movement" in modern literature has become an important period in the history of literature and society in America. Incorporating influences such as jazz, art, literature, philosophy and religion, the beat writers created a new vision of modern life and changed the way a generation of people seen the world. The generation is now aging and its representative voices are becoming lost, but the message is alive and well. The Beats have forever changed the nature of American literature. They
Importance of Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road It is Dean Moriarty, in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, who represents the eternal flame of youth that was adopted by the rebellious youth culture of the Beat Generation. He is free from responsibility, “simply a youth tremendously excited with life…want[ing] so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him” (Kerouac 4). Just as the Greek of the Olympics, “with [the] torch…[that] ignites the pagan