Born on March 12, 1922, the youngest of three children in a French-Canadian family that had established itself in Lowell, Massachusetts, Jack Kerouac was by the age of ten already aiming to become a writer. His father ran a print shop and published a local newsletter called the Spotlight. Before long he began writing and producing his own sport sheet, which he sold to friends and acquaintances in Lowell. He attended both Catholic and public schools, and won athletic scholarships to the Horace Mann prep school (in New York) and then to Columbia University. In New York he fell in with fellow literary-icons-to-be Allen Ginsberg, the poet, and William S. Burroughs, the novelist. A broken leg hobbled his college football career, and Kerouac quit Columbia in his sophomore year, eventually joining the merchant marine and then Navy (from which he was discharged). Thus began the restless wandering that would characterize both his legacy and his life.
To Kerouac, “Beat” – a shorthand term for “beatitude” and the idea that the downtrodden are saintly – was not about politics but about spirituality and art. The thirty published and unpublished books he wrote from 1941 to 1969 include Kerouac’s thirteen-volume, more or less autobiographical “Legend of Duluoz” – a study of a particular lifetime, his own, in the manner of Honore’ de Balzac’s Human Comedy or Marcel Poust’s Remembrance of Things Past.
Kerouac set out to become the quintessential literary mythmaker of postwar America, creating his “Legend of Duluoz” by spinning poetic tales about his adventures. “I promise I shall never give up, and that I’ll die yelling and laughing,” Kerouac wrote in his diary in 1949. “And that until then I’ll rush around this world I insist in holy and pull at everyone’s lapel and make them confess to me and to all.” At the time when Norman Mailer was playing sociologist by studying “whit Negro” hipsters, Kerouac sought to depict his fascinatingly inchoate friend Neal Cassady as the modern-day equivalent of the Wild West legends Jim Bridger, Pecos Bill, and Jesse James. Like the Lowell boy he never quite ceased to be, Kerouac saw football players and range-worn cowboys as the paragons of true America; his diaries teem with references to “folk heroes” and praise for Zane Grey’s honest drifters, Herman Melville’s confidence men, and Babe Ruth’s feats on the diamond and in the barroom. Kerouac brought Cassady into the American mythical pantheon as “the mad Ahab at the wheel,” compelling others to join his roaring drive across Walt Whitman’s patchwork Promise Land.
If human beings are true to themselves, they will be able to understand what information they acquire is the truth and they will be happy. Schall’s “A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning,” mentions “not to lie to ourselves in our own souls about ourselves, to describe accurately the real results of our choices and deeds, not to be blind to the results of our errors, sins, and defects.” I understood that in order for humans to be happy they need to know the truth in the knowledge that they acquire by the use of their thought process. This will develop their minds and minimize their “errors, sins, and defects.”
Peterson, Hayley. "Lululemon Has Entered Completely New Territory With A New Clothing Line." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 18 Mar. 2014. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. .
Lululemon is an athletic company that is in the clothing industry and more specifically in the retail sector of the economy. The clothing industry is a multi-million dollar industry that is devoted to the making and selling products for consumers to wear. Lululemon produces various athletic attire for both men and women including exercise...
Somewhere out in the Old West wind kicks up dust off a lone road through a lawless town, a road once dominated by men with gun belts attached at the hip, boots upon their feet and spurs that clanged as they traversed the dusty road. The gunslinger hero, a man with a violent past and present, a man who eventually would succumb to the progress of the frontier, he is the embodiment of the values of freedom and the land the he defends with his gun. Inseparable is the iconography of the West in the imagination of Americans, the figure of the gunslinger is part of this iconography, his law was through the gun and his boots with spurs signaled his arrival, commanding order by way of violent intentions. The Western also had other iconic figures that populated the Old West, the lawman, in contrast to the gunslinger, had a different weapon to yield, the law. In the frontier, his belief in law and order as well as knowledge and education, brought civility to the untamed frontier. The Western was and still is the “essential American film genre, the cornerstone of American identity.” (Holtz p. 111) There is a strong link between America’s past and the Western film genre, documenting and reflecting the nations changes through conflict in the construction of an expanding nation. Taking the genres classical conventions, such as the gunslinger, and interpret them into the ideology of America. Thus The Western’s classical gunslinger, the personification of America’s violent past to protect the freedoms of a nation, the Modernist takes the familiar convention and buries him to signify that societies attitude has change towards the use of diplomacy, by way of outmoding the gunslinger in favor of the lawman, taming the frontier with civility.
In this essay I will be comparing two playwrights, A Raisin in the Sun and A Doll’s House, to one another. I will also compare the two to modern time and talk about whether or not over time our society has changed any. Each of these plays has a very interesting story line based in two very different time eras. Even though there is an 80 year time gap the two share similar problems and morals, things you could even find now in the year of 2016. In the following paragraphs I will go over the power of time and what we as a society have done to make a change.
[1] The silent film, With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness, was produced in 1926: a time of prosperity, an era without the skepticism of the modern American mind. People were not yet questioning the stories and histories they had been taught as children. The entertaining story told in this Robert North Bradbury film is loosely based on the life of an American hero. However, the presence of several insidiously inaccurate historical representations demonstrates how an entertaining film might not be as innocent as it initially seems. This film fails to question certain key issues concerning the Daniel Boone legend. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The creators of this film wholeheartedly bought into the many warped myths and distorted “facts” surrounding the story of Daniel Boone. Amazingly, the ethnocentric (read racist and colonial) ideals found in 19th century whites apparently still existed in 1926, and, to a certain extent, still do today. This essay will explore the factors that contributed to the twisted representations found in With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness. Hopefully, the work of this essay and many others like it will help the next generation of Americans (and filmmakers) to avoid the same injustices and societal pitfalls that have plagued mankind for ages.
A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney is composed of dialogues, proficiently written to disguise social issues in Britain in the1950s. The conversations between the characters reveal their dynamic relationships and Delaney “dresses” each character uniquely based on their social identities and personalities: The “black” characters in the play had uniformed professions to boost their social status since uniforms are associated with “honorable” professions. Social identities based on class is best illustrated by Helen’s clothing, for example her possession of only one hat and her reaction to Jo’s request for new clothes (), however, the clothes for her wedding were new () suggest as change in class, which she could not previously afford (). Hence, the play skillfully relates clothing to racial stratification in Britain, where it was thought that “black” people were affiliated with the jungle () and social division based on wealth, which affected where they lived and level of sophistication they could afford.
The American Dream and the decay of American values has been one of the most popular topics in American fiction in the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises create a full picture of American failure and pursue its ideals after the end of World War I by portraying the main characters as outsiders and describing the transportation in a symbolic way. Putting the aimless journeys for material life foreground, Fitzgerald and Hemingway skillfully link West and men and associate East to not only money but women. As American modernists, Hemingway utilizes his simple and dialog-oriented writing to appeal to readers and Fitzgerald ambiguously portrays Gatsby through a narrator, Nick, to cynically describe American virtue and corruption, which substantially contribute to modernism in literature.
My title comes from one of Kerouac’s own essays, “Aftermath: The Philosophy of the Beat Generation,”
Obesity has become an epidemic in today’s society. Today around 50% of America is now considered to be over weight. Fast-food consumption has been a major contributor to the debate of the twenty-first century. Chapter thirteen, titled “Is Fast-Food the New Tobacco,” in the They Say I Say book, consists of authors discussing the debate of fast-food’s link to obesity. Authors debate the government’s effects on the fast-food industry, along with whether or not the fast-food industry is to blame for the rise in obesity throughout America. While some people blame the fast food industry for the rise in obesity, others believe it is a matter of personal responsibility to watch what someone eats and make sure they get the proper exercise.
In the article “The Thematic Paradigm” exerted from his book, A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, Robert Ray provides a description of the two types of heroes depicted in American film: the outlaw hero and the official hero. Although the outlaw hero is more risky and lonely, he cherishes liberty and sovereignty. The official hero on the other hand, generally poses the role of an average ordinary person, claiming an image of a “civilized person.” While the outlaw hero creates an image of a rough-cut person likely to commit a crime, the official hero has a legend perception. In this essay, I will reflect on Ray’s work, along with demonstrating where I observe ideologies and themes.
Lululemon’s competitive strategy is broad differentiation due to the company expanding its target market and product line. Although Lululemon was initially established to satisfy the apparel needs of adult women who practice yoga, the company has widened its definition to
These individuals come from educated and sophisticated backgrounds and socioeconomically fall within the middle to upper class. This target customer won’t buy new clothing based on the fact that it might be worn out or too old, they buy habitually in order to keep up with the latest trending styles and innovations that money can buy. “Other than their poise and perfect coifs, you can identify members of this gym robot army by their brand of clothing. You’ve seen them at your gym, at the Whole Foods and in line for green juices; they’re the Lululemon ladies and they’re fancy as fuck.” (Blisstree) This consumer segment is also very brand and status orientated, and therefore views and wears Lululemon as a status symbol of high end and high quality, athletic
John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 and lived in Salinas, California. John Steinbeck went to Stanford University but left without a degree in 1925. He became a professional author. His purpose to write about the Great Depression. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas, California a culturally diverse location with a lot of immigrant history. This added a regional style to his writing. Ben Joravsky is a professional writer from Chicago, Illinois. His purpose for writing is to entertain the readers. Lee Hopkins was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He got a masters degree from Bank Street College of Education. His purpose was to educate children and teenagers.
Ernest M. Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway was a novelist and short story writer, who became well known for the passion that he used in all his writings. Many of his works are regarded as classics of American Literature, and some have even been made into motion pictures. The Old Man and the Sea, which is the story about an old Cuban fisherman, was published in 1952. Because of this creation, in 1954 Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.