Beat Generation - Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg

Extract

[...] This poem breaks conventional and even cultural barriers and taboos by mentioning certain subjects such as drug use or homosexuality, which later led to a trial and then to censorship. Using obscenity, analogy, and personal experience to describe the conditions of American society at the time, he stands as resistant to ideas of conformity and normality. From the very beginning of the poem, he writes about how the ‘best minds' of his generation are being destroyed by the society that forces them to adapt to ‘normality'. [...]

[...] It is the image that Ginsberg wants to convey by using this title that underlines the fact that the Beat Generation cannot easily be silenced. To conclude, through the profound originality of their writings, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg express their vision of freedom of speech, their conception of man's relationship with nature and their despair at the American dream that was being proposed to them. By breaking free from the conventions of the writings of the time, they opposed the dominant currents. [...]

[...] On the Road by Jack Kerouac Jack Kerouac was one of the first writers to draw public attention to the Beat Movement. Through his book On the Road, which has become a major work on the American literary landscape, the author places himself as a spokesperson for his generation. On the Road then appears as a testimony to the difficulties encountered by a neglected generation, wandering in search of answers. The author's way of bearing witness to his protest was through the creation of a new literary style that overturned the conventions of the time: spontaneous prose. [...]

[...] The later was created in the 1950s at the end of the Second World War, mainly by two young authors: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. This movement broke away from social norms and its members sought to freely express their personal lives and artistic expression. Their writings were marked by a deep revolt against the social and economic order of the United States, which was perceived as conservative, imperial and restrictive. They despise the complacency and hypocrisy of American life and their principles and ideologies that oppress individuality. [...]

[...] So, he decides to wipe out the descriptions of classical literature, which he considers to be the symbol of a dead language. He was then inspired by the rhythm of Jazz at the time, Be-Bop. Kerouac follows the rhythm or rather the beat of the drums coming from his ‘inner jazz' from which the rhythm of the whole novel is derived. It takes us on the road with him and transmits this desire to travel by transforming fiction into reality. [...]