On the Road

The Beat Generation & Jack Kerouac

The Beats• A small group of

friends turned into a movement– Jack Kerouac– Allen Ginsberg– Neal Cassady–William S.

Burroughs– John Clellon

Holmes

The Beats• Started in

uptown Manhattan in the mid-1940s

• Migrated to San Francisco and picked up other like-minded friends

The Beat Generation• “If today’s Generation X” (or “Gen

Y” or whatever it’s called) is like Woodstock, the Beat Generation was like a small dark tavern at two in the morning, with a bunch of old jazz musicians jamming on stage and Jack Kerouac buying rounds at the bar.”

The Beat Generation

• “The so-called Beat Generation was a whole bunch of people, of all different nationalities, who came to the conclusion that society sucked.”

The Beat Generation• “Beat”: bad, ruined, spent

– defeat, resignation, disappointment

• Young men who “came of age” during World War II but couldn’t fit in as clean-cut soldiers or professional businessmen

• They had to struggle to survive – and couldn’t sit still

The Beat Generation• “Beat”: beatific,

holy, sacred• Kerouac was a

devout Catholic and wanted to capture the “secret holiness” of the downtrodden

Jack Kerouac• Born Jean-Louis

Kerouac on March 12, 1922

• Spoke joual, a French dialect, before learning English

• Youngest of three children

Jack Kerouac• Won a football

scholarship to Columbia University in New York

• Fought with the coach• Dropped out and joined

the military• Took cross-country trips

with Neal Cassady and started working on his novel

Jack Kerouac & On the Road• Wrote about his trips

– Exactly as they happened– Without pausing to edit,

fictionalize, or even think– With no paragraph marks– In stream-of-consciousness style

• Myths:– Presented his manuscript on a

single roll of unbroken paper, 120-feet long

– In three weeks• Faced seven years of

rejection prior to publication

Jack Kerouac & On the Road• Achieved sudden celebrity:

“Jack went to bed obscure and woke up famous”

• Encountered spiritual and moral decline

• Developed a severe drinking habit

• Moved back to Long Island to live with his mother

• Died on October 21, 1969

On the Road• “If you read On the Road, it’s a

valentine to the United States. All this is pure poetry almost a boy’s love for his country that’s just gushing in its adjectives and descriptions. You know, Kerouac used to say, ‘Anybody can make Paris holy, but I can make Topeka holy.’”

On the Road• Gave a voice to a rising,

dissatisfied fringe of the young generation of the late 1940s and early 1950s

• A cast of restless, idealistic youth who yearn for something more than the bland conformity of a generally prosperous society

On the Road• Colorful characters:– Jack Kerouac = Sal

Paradise– Neal Cassady =

Dean Moriarty (an “archetypal American Man”

– Allen Ginsberg = Carlo Marx

–William Burroughs = Bull Lee