The Beat Generation

1682 Words4 Pages

The period leading up to the 1950s was considered as the Era of Conformity. At this time the majority of Americans were living in suburban areas called Levittowns, felt threatened by Communism, they were driven with conspicuous soncumption. Men would go to work all dressing up in a grey or blue flannel suit while women were domesticated for they stayed home to cook, clean, and tend the children. For Americans at that time eating a family dinner and watching TV every night was considered a conservative tradition. However this all soon changed during post World War Two. Tired of the boring, traditional day-to-day life style that they lived at the time, most Americans felt “beaten” down in a sense. Starting in 1984, the period after the second World War should be, as stated by Jack Kerouac and John Clellon Holmes, known as the Beat Generation. Those who were a part of the Beat Generation did not believe in straight jobs and they lived in dirty apartments selling drugs and committing crimes. Some of the Beat Generation beliefs include the rejection of mainstream American values, exploring alternate forms of sexuality such as homosexuality as well as experimenting with drugs like cocaine and LSD. The Beat Generation was meant to echo the Lost Generation in the 1920s but it made a larger impact than its historical counterpart. This generation was created because people were tired of doing the same exact thing every day, it got repetitive. These “rebels”, as some would call them, wanted to step of the normal day-to-day life that was expected of from every American. They wanted to created their own ways of living, exploring into lifestyles that were most time looked down upon, revolutionists if you would, changing the beliefs and life st...

... middle of paper ...

...ow and then to just keep their sanity.

Works Cited

1. Hemmer, Kurt. Encyclopedia of Beat Literature. New York: Facts On File, 2007. Print.
2. Knight, Brenda. Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists, and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution. Berkeley, CA: Conari, 1996. Print.
3. P. J. Johnston. "Dharma Bums: The Beat Generation and the Making of Countercultural Pilgrimage." Buddhist-Christian Studies 33.1 (2013): 165-179. Project MUSE. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. .
4. Ries, Charles P. "Baby Beat Generation & The 2Nd San Francisco Renaissance." Hiram Poetry Review 67 (2006): 48-51. Literary Reference Center. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
5. Tales of Beatnik Glory by Ed Sanders; Naked Angels: The Lives and Literature of the Beat Generation by John Tytell
Review by: Barry Wallenstein
Contemporary Literature , Vol. 18, No. 4 (Autumn, 1977), pp. 542-551

Show More
Related

  • Causes of the Counter-Culture

    1231 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the 1950’s rolled along and the 1960’s came into effect, the world was thrown into a topspin that would soon define every generation of youths. As the trends changed and the music got more complex a deeper metamorphosis was taking place inside every city and every person. To develop a counterculture in the 1960’s there had to be new ideas circulating that were counter-norm. These ideas were not developed right away for any one reason, though. Just like the times, the causes for this counter-culture were far more complex than anyone had seen before in the 20th century. Some could say it was because of a civil rights call or say it was because of the drugs, but I just don’t know if anyone could really pin it to one key cause.

    Read More

  • Fifties Society Summary

    593 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the outside, the 1950’s was a great time for America. Society revolved around the idea of America being a middle-class nation. Americans worshipped conformity, and materialism satisfied the need to conform. However, the prosperity of materialistic America hid the growing, numerous problems. Dissent in any way was not tolerated; all injustice was stifled by a fear of difference. In “Fifties Society,” Alan Brinkley discusses the truth of the era; that the fear of nonconformity was hidden by the seemingly prosperous middle-class nation. Brinkley argues the Beat movement and “feminine mystique” show that the people who did not fit in reveal the true colors of 1950’s society.

    Read More

  • Conformity In The 1950s Essay

    606 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1950’s have received a reputation as an age of political, social and cultural conformity. This reputation is rightfully given, as with almost every aspect of life people were encouraged to conform to society. Conforming is not necessarily a negative thing for society, and the aspects of which people were encouraged to conform in the 1950’s have both negative and positive connotations.

    Read More

  • Life During the 1950s in America

    1948 Words  | 4 Pages

    The 1950s seemed like a perfect decade. The rise of suburbs outside cities led to an expansion of the middle class, thus allowing more Americans to enjoy the luxuries of life. The rise of these suburbs also allowed the middle class to buy houses with land that used to only be owned by more wealthy inhabitants. Towns like Levittown-one of the first suburbs- were divided in such a way that every house looked the same (“Family Structures”). Any imperfections were looked upon as unfavorable to the community as a whole. Due to these values, people today think of the 1950s as a clean cut and model decade. This is a simplistic perception because underneath the surface, events that took place outside the United States actually had a direct effect on our own country’s history. The rise of Communism in Russia struck fear into the hearts of the American people because it seemed to challenge their supposedly superior way of life.

    Read More

  • Jack Kerouac and The Beat

    1619 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...the Beats" in the late fifties and early sixties, paving the way for a more accepting American society and the tolerance of alternative lifestyles we enjoy today.

    Read More

  • Jack Kerouac: The King Of The Beats And The Beat Generation

    605 Words  | 2 Pages

    America was built on rebellion. This was no different for the Beat Generation whom took Americans in the 20th century, into a new way of life. Middle class free spirited people who questioned the practices of everyday lifestyle and mainstream culture, the beats lived in disillusionment with society. The fifties being a time of conservative family morals encouraged the bohemian nature of the beats for their want to experience more. The nature of this rejection is expected but, why? And how does such rebellion begin to take place, what forms does it take, and does such rebellion provide a lasting change?

    Read More

  • 1960s Music Essay

    3117 Words  | 7 Pages

    One of the main waves of music of the time was a calmer more gentle rock. A major band called The Beatles were so popular during this time it was called Beatle Mania. The Beatles were one of the numerous bands coming to America either many more would coming getting the title of the British invasion. During the 1960s America’s economy was greatly increasing. This time period focused on the housing and computer industry which overpowered automobiles, chemicals, and electrically powered consumer durables, which were the leading sectors in the 1950s. Agriculture fell from 19.2 to 7.5 percent, minimum wage increased from $1.00 to $1.25, and the unemployment of was around 6 percent. Another economic point is the growing middleclass. Between 1945 and 1960, the median family income, adjusted for inflation, almost doubled. Rising income doubled the size of the middle class. Before the Great Depression of the 1930s only one-third of Americans qualified as middle class, but in postwar America two-thirds did. Many middle class families of postwar America became suburban families. Of the 13 million new homes built in the 1950s, 85 percent were in the suburbs. The GI bill helped this growth greatly. Soldiers coming home from the war would have a government loan for a home or going to college. Making college more of a social norm. Which still effects society today making more jobs having a college degree required. The political culture focused more on containing communism with the theory helping this being called the domino theory “Military Intervention in Korea and Vietnam finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the falling domino principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration

    Read More

  • The American Culture of the 1950s

    1884 Words  | 4 Pages

    As World War Two came to a close, a new American culture was developing all across the United States. Families were moving away from crowded cities into spacious suburban towns to help create a better life for them during and after the baby boom of the post-war era. Teenagers were starting to become independent by listing to their own music and not wearing the same style of clothing as their parents. Aside from the progress of society that was made during this time period, many people still did not discuss controversial issues such as divorce and sexual relations between young people. While many historians regard the 1950s as a time of true conservatism at its finest, it could really be considered a time of true progression in the American way of life.

    Read More

  • Rock n Roll & 20th Century Culture

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ryan, John. “The Seventh Stream: The emergency of rock n roll in American popular      music,” (Book reviews) Social Forces (1994): March, p. 927. Star, Alexander. “Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular      Music” (book reviews)

    Read More

  • The Counterculture

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the sixties Americans saw the rise of the counterculture. The counterculture, which was a group of movements focused on achieving personal and cultural liberation, was embraced by the decade’s young Americans. Because many Americans were members of the different movements in the counterculture, the counterculture influenced American society. As a result of the achievements the counterculture movements made, the United States in the 1960s became a more open, more tolerant, and freer country.

    Read More

  • Lunatics Taking Over the Asylum: Cultural Chaos in 1960s America

    7167 Words  | 15 Pages

    Firstly, the group of friends and writers most commonly known as the Beats evolved dramatically in focal points such as Greenwich Village and Columbia University, and subsequently spread their political and cultural views to a wider audience. The three Beat figureheads William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac each perceived an agenda within American society to clamp down on those who were in some way different from the accepted ‘norm’, and in response deliberately flirted with the un-American practices of Buddhism, drug use, homosexuality and the avant-garde. Ginsberg courted danger by lending a voice to the homosexual subculture that had been marginalised by repressive social traditions and cultural patterns within the United States.

    Read More

  • Women In The 1950s Essay

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1950s was a time when conformity held supreme in the culture at large. Issues such as women 's rights were thrown to the back as people tried to remain in the popular form of a family. These issues being put off only caused the prolonging of the tumultuous 1960s that would soon

    Read More

  • Music as a Tool of Protest and Social Change

    1915 Words  | 4 Pages

    Weissman, Dick. (2010). Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution: Music and Social Change in America. Blackbeat Books: New York

    Read More

  • Black Music in Toni Morrison's Jazz

    1730 Words  | 4 Pages

    Breckenridge, Stan L. (2003). "The 'Path African American music for everyone. Second Edition. Iowa: Kendall-Hunt Publications, Inc. Enotes.

    Read More

  • The Hippie Counterculture

    2095 Words  | 5 Pages

    The nineteen fifties was a decade of prosperous times in America, but the average lifestyle of an American seemed extremely dull. The average American conformed to social norms, most Americans in the nineteen fifties dressed alike, talked the same way, and seemed to have the same types of personality. Music is what started to change the conformist lifestyle in America. Teenagers started to rebellion against their families by listening to Rock-n-Roll...

    Read More

More about The Beat Generation

Open Document