Exploring the Beat Generation: Kerouac and the Era of Cultural Change

Questo appunto di Letteratura Inglese riguarda la Beat Generation, un movimento letterario, musicale e artistico che si sviluppò negli Stati Uniti dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale. L’appunto illustra gli elementi principali del movimento e si concentra su Jack Kerouac, autore del noto romanzo “On the Road”.

The Beat generation

The Beat Generation was a literary, musical and artistic movement that developed after World War II in the United States. This movement influenced the literature and the culture of the time and modified people’s view of life and the collective consciousness of society. An important author of the Beat Generation was Jack Kerouac, who was one of the best representatives of the new American culture. The term ‘’beat’’ was introduced by Kerouac in 1947, but the birth year of the Beat Generation was 1952, when John Clellon Holmes published ‘’Go’’, a semi-autobiographical novel. This work is considered to be the first published novel belonging to the Beat genre. The article "This is the Beat Generation" (Holmes, New York Times, November 1952), marked the birth of the movement. The word “beat” could mean "beaten", “defeated”; the term may refer to the presumed instability of these authors and to their frequent use of alcohol and drugs. Actually, Kerouac highlighted a connection with beatitude and the spontaneous beat of jazz music. Beat authors took up the themes of the youth movement of their time, they questioned apartheid and the subordinate condition women. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of conventional values, the rejection of materialism, sexual liberation and exploration and experimentation with psychedelic drugs. Beat authors rejected norms and wanted to express their dissatisfaction. In the 1960s, elements of the Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie culture.

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) is considered to be the most important author of the Beat Generation. He was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. Despite his family’s financial problems, he was able to go to Columbia University on a scholarship. Back in New York, he started to live a Bohemian life; he wrote various unpublished novels and carried them around in a rucksack while travelling across the country. Kerouac’s famous Beat novel, “On the Road” (1957) was published seven years after being written. He also wrote other novels and stories. He became famous, but success led him to drink heavily and isolate himself from people. As a matter of fact, he died alone at 47 in San Francisco. Kerouac’s novels expressed a sort of romantic anarchism, emphasizing instinct and spontaneity, friendship and love of nature, with an open-style sort of prose: he created a free form of writing that came from the colloquial prose of Cassidy’s letters, which became the distinctive mark of Beat Generation writers.

“On the Road”

The novel, divided into five parts and written in the form of episodes, is set in the late 1940s and describes the young people of the Beat Generation cultural movement traveling throughout the United States. Sal Paradise, who represents Jack Kerouac, is the protagonist and narrator of a series of hitchhiking, car and bus trips. Sal is a student who grew up in the East and has literary aspirations. He meets Dean Moriarty, who represents Neal Cassady, in New York. Part one discusses the hitchhiking and bus trip from New York to Chicago, to Denver, to San Francisco, to Sabinal (now Selma), to Pittsburg, to New York and back to Paterson, from July 1947 to the end of October that year. Among the young beats is Dean Moriarty. He lives in Denver, in the West, he was in a reform school and his lifestyle is in stark contrast to the bourgeois idea of the need to have a fixed abode, a job and a good degree of responsibility. Dean is only interested in living an intense life made of countless experiences; he wishes to know the immensity of the North American continent and experience the thrill of sex, jazz music and heated discussions with his friends, under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Part two is about Sal and Dean's travels, from Christmas 1948 to February 1949. Part three describes Sal's stay in Denver in 1949 and Sal and Dean's trip from San Francisco to Denver, Chicago and New York. Sal is attracted and influenced by his friend's lifestyle, and when he returns to the West he decides to join him. After a long car trip, he finally finds him in Denver, Colorado, and for about two years he leads a nomadic life with him. As time goes by, Sal realizes that his friend's restlessness, which leads him to experience everything new and forbidden, is due to his inability to adapt to society. After each trip, Sal feels worse and worse and wishes to start over, to have a permanent place to stay and a job. He returns to New York, resumes college and starts leading a normal life, but after seeing Dean he decides to leave again. Part four is about Sal and Dean's meeting in New York in the summer of 1950, Sal's trip to Denver and his trip with Dean to Mexico, where the breakup between the two friends takes place. Part five is about Sal's last trip from Mexico City to New York in the fall of 1950, Sal's meeting with Laura, who represents Joan Haverty (Kerouac's second wife) and his last meeting with Dean.
Per ulteriori approfondimenti su "On the Road" vedi anche qua