A Comparison of Ginsberg and Kerouac
The 1950s saw a period of great material prosperity in the United States. After World War II G.I.s came back to take charge of the family again. Women no longer had to work and could return to the home to nurse their newborn babies. Housing, automobiles, and white picket fences were in high demand. Televisions became commonplace, making possible the rapid distribution of visual information- not to mention the sitcom. McCarthy had started to purge the U.S. of those pesky Communists, ensuring a democratic future for all. While the blacks, of course, could not realize it, virtually everyone else saw the fulfillment of the American Dream.
In their writings of the mid-1950s, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac describe an America recently converted to the religion of the T.V. Ginsberg witnesses and records big blue Buicks in driveways of identical box houses. With Walt Whitman he watches whole families peruse the peaches in late-night supermarkets. Conversely, Kerouac describes a spiritual journey that takes him back and forth across the U.S. Both Ginsberg and Kerouac use Buddhist ideals and methodology to criticize the current state of American society. They seek after a more honest and equal American Dream.
Ginsberg and Kerouac are an interesting comparison because of their unique symbiotic relationship. Not only was each a literary influence on the other, but they actually appear in each other's works. In Ginsberg's "Sunflower Sutra," he and Kerouac sit between a railroad and a river to watch the sun set over San Francisco. Kerouac points out a sunflower, and Ginsberg begins one of his mystical visions ...
The primary image in the poem is a ...
... middle of paper ...
...g to live in a real world. He does what he can, and gives the rest up for port wine.
Kerouac and Ginsberg envisioned a dream that no one can live up to. Like everyone else, they are good at telling you what's wrong, but cannot come up with the right answer nearly as quickly. From the evidence of the texts, I would give Kerouac more credit than Ginsberg, because he was less hypocritical and made his best attempt at reaching his spiritual goal. Ginsberg, however, definitely did his part in pinpointing the errors of a generation. Consequently, all are Holy and Beautiful.
Works Cited
Ginsberg, Allen. "Sunflower Sutra." Howl and other Poems. San
Francisco: City Lights, 1956. Rpt. in The New American Poetry. Ed. Donald M. Allen. New York: Grove Press, 1960.
179-181.
Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
Who is your favorite author? Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Ray Bradbury, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Dr. Suess? Have you ever wondered what their strengths and weaknesses are and which authors are better. Some of these authors have written more than 40 books in there life time. Edgar Allen Poe and Ray Bradbury are very similar yet very different. You can use a compare and contrast format to figure out the similarities and differences of these two classic American Authors.
There are many similarities between the war experiences of Kurt Vonnegut and the character of Billy Pilgrim in his novel Slaughterhouse Five. Several similarities between them are shown in the letter from Kurt Vonnegut to his family dated May 29, 1945 (Vonnegut, Armageddon in Retrospect 11-14).
have a different story behind them but share similarities, such as them being authors, the
In this year Henry Ford created the first affordable, combustion engine car called the Model-T. The creation of the Model-T changed the lives of every American. Vehicles were looked at as a way of freedom and excitement. Soon after, every household in America had a car. The demand for vehicles sparked a whole new industry, creating jobs, more revenues and improving the American economy in every way. With so many vehicles on the roads, roads needed to become bigger and better which spawned a nation wide road construction. This also created more jobs and strengthened the economy even further. (Inventions: Car)
The 1950s created an environment and culture that allowed for the beginning of a wide-scale civil rights movement because of prominent leaders in the black community, the death of Emmett Till, and the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
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.
...human life by using nature and the environment around said person, in “The Open Boat”. They both use irony, naturalism, objectivism, determinism, etc. to evince the, modern, human nature.
The 1920's were a time where North America became modernized. Whether it was the music, the culture or the growth in technology, this time era is known to most people as the point where America advanced itself to become a world renowned country. An advancement that will be focused on is the Ford Model T. During this time owning a car was a symbol of wealth. Henry Ford, the creator of the Model T, made a system that revolutionized the automobile industry as we know it today. Henry Ford made it possible for people with an average income to own a motor vehicle by creating the assembly line and the theory of mass production. "The horse, which had been the chief means of land transportation for 3,500 years, had given way to the automobile, and the country's largest industry had been born." (Gordon)
The 1950s was a great success for the civil rights movement; there were a number of developments which greatly improved the lives of black people in America and really started the civil rights movement, as black people became more confident and willing to fight for their cause.
The 1950's represented the cold war era, symbolized by the red scare, anti-communism, potential nuclear war, and McCarthyism. Patriotic loyalty and conformity demonstrated an allegiance to our country. Citizens who spoke out against US government policies experienced surveillance, being black listed, and labeled communists. The sensationalized conviction and execution of the Rosenberg's for spying, jeopardized our countries' national security and reinforced anti-communism propaganda. Moreover, students practiced emergency ducking under their desk drills to prepare for a nuclear fallout and families purchased bomb shelter for protection. The hyper-vigilance, fear, paranoia, and post - traumatic stress that permeated our country's landscape of being under siege, intensified with the polio epidemic.
The second reason that the Model T improved people's lives was by improving working conditions. A piece of evidence is from a website that says, "Workers no longer needed to live close to their workplace, instead they live farther away and still arrive at their jobs.
...g with many individuals, are alienated and in turn, wish for extreme change and even another life. Ginsberg conveys a vital message that carries through to the year 2010 even more. Materialism does not make a person, it is insignificant. What is imperative is the natural world; beauty, individuality, and real human interactions as these are concepts that make an individual.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,” This opening line of Allen Ginsberg’s 1955 poem Howl truly depicts what the Beat generation was really like. He writes that his ‘generation was destroyed by madness’ meaning that the people of his generation became the victims of drug abuse, alcohol addiction, and violence. The Beat generation, or beatniks for short, consisted of some of Americas most celebrated writers including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassidy, and of course its leader, Jack Kerouac. The beats were a unique group of writers who strongly opposed social norm. They were very independent people who were known for breaking the law whenever they needed to. They were also drifters who spent most of their lives on the road, a motif which especially fascinated Jack Kerouac.
The advancements that came from it were bigger than anyone ever could have imagined. The advancements led to some of the greatest leaps in the modern middle class, to something as simple, yet necessary, as road development. The Model T helped America become what it is today and the effects will also be felt for a long time to
Phil Knight was a track runner. He was very talented at what he did. He went to school in oregon in 1955. Also he was a middle distance track runner. He was very good at running track. During his track running time he was assigned a project about a business and that’s kinda how nike began.