A Literary Movement: Beat Generation - Essay Example

Question One

The era just before 1950s was defined as the Era of Conformity (Watson, 1998). Most of the Americans living in Levittown or suburban area were threatened by Communism; their main drive being conspicuous consumption. Men would dress in grey or blue flannel suits and go to work while women stayed at home to cook, clean and take care of the children. During this period, it was a conservative tradition for Americans to eat a family dinner and watch television every night. After World War II, everything changed as people were tired of these traditions. This gave rise to the Beat Generation. This paper tries to explore more about the beat generation by analyzing the women of the beat generation as rebels, with special reference to Carolyn Cassady and Joyce Johnson. The paper tries to look at ways in which they rebelled and what they rebelled against.

As an introduction, the phrase “Beat” referred to as “Beat Generation" denotes a literary movement that was initiated by authors that were significant in building the American culture and politics immediately after World War II (Lawlor, 1998). Majority of the authors in this generation were able to publish their worked in the 1950s. The pioneers of this generation were Jack Kerouac together with John Clellon Holmes, who made the proponents of the famous Beat Generation not to believe in a legitimate source of income and jobs. Most of them lived in dirty apartments and earned a living by trading in drugs and being involved in crimes. They believed in rejection of traditional American value, homosexuality and doing experiments with drugs. Their practices were similar to the Lost Generation of the 1920s. The generation mainly consisted of poets and writers who rose to fame after their works were featured in the books; "Howi” by Ginsberg, “Naked Lunch” by Burrough and “On the Road” by Kerouac. These publications drew the attention of people to beat literature. The beat generation writers were willing to work on any publication on sex, drugs or anything that was viewed as not appropriate by society. They were now referred to as individuals who rebelled against the materialistic society of the American middle class through literature. Ideally, they rebelled against the constraints of society, traditionalism, materialism, militarism, conformism and lack of expression.

Women were also not left behind in the Beat Generation. Though history has not said much about them, they were considered unimportant. This is probably because of the belief that women played an essential part in the community. The women Beats were also involved in drugs, alcohol and sex and such behave was not worth mentioning in the society. Other than that, in the early 1940s, the beat women were taken to mental medical facilities, received electro-shock treatment and being forced to stay at home to be taught conservative values. Few female poets in the movements were less talented than their male counterparts. However, some of the women had outstanding ideas. The part played by women in the famous beat generation can only be highlighted by looking at specific women. This is because most women were sidelined and only supported the men writers. Feminists and advocates of the female writers have pointed out that women were the inspiration behind the men. Women were also as brilliant as their male counterparts. To justify these, we must look at a few women writers, how they lived, worked and analyze them before giving a conclusive remark.

CAROLYN CASSADY

One such woman is Carolyn Cassady. She has been termed as one of the most celebrated female beats. Cassady is claimed to have been intimately involved the three foremost pioneers of the Beat Generation that is Kerouac, Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. Due to her involvement, the later generations never respected her for her creativity and writings but due to her involvement with Kerouac, Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. By then Carolyn was comparable to the wealthy and famous wives of modern-day sports and musical celebrities. Carolyn very wonderful lady who took a significant role in the beat generation literary movement. This made her contribution to be documented. He background was rather strange because she was brought up in a firm and masterful family that envisaged her to be a conservative typical domestic housewife. Her family believed in education which made her go to school, unlike many unfortunate women. In school, she had a passion for arts and creativity, but her parents were not for the idea. She began by taking theatre lessons at a tender age of nine, which saw her win some costume awards at twelve. She went on to sell paintings. Her passion for art and creativity made her get appointed as the head of the make-up department at the tender age of sixteen years. It was evident that she was talented in the arts.

Later in 1947, she joined the University of Denver and met with Kerouac, Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. It is during this time that she got involved with Neal Cassady but broke up with him later after finding him in bed with Allen Ginsberg. After college, Cassady began a career in Holly wood costume design. She was later married to Neal in 1948 and were blessed with three children. In 1952, Kerouac moved in to live with the couple at her time when he was working on the “Visions of Neal”. They got involved and had an affair that lasted until 1960. This was best told in Cassady’s Off the Road. Her marriage to Neal was stormy, and Neal was ever absent. She continued with her painting work and also worked in theatre and the arts. She was also committed to her husband and helped raise her children in an appreciated traditional value, which made her be partly accepted by society. Carolyn never wrote ant great work of the beat generation. Still, she was recognized in the beat generation as a member of the influential people of literacy importance by being involved in the lives of many authors and poets.

As much as she never wrote any great work of art, the authors she influenced they rebelled against the constraints of society, traditionalism, materialism, militarism, conformism and lack of expression. It is worth mentioning that Carolyn came into public glamour as a character in Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road”. Carolyn contributed in the beat generation literature by writing the book; “Heart Beat: My life with Jack and Neal”. The literature work was substandard and frequently used Kerouac’s name for marketing.

JOYCE JOHNSON

The second woman of the Beat Generation was Joyce Johnson. Just like Cassady, Joyce was also famous for having an affair with Beat generation writers. Joyce Johnson was a gifted and respected writer who expressed her rebellion through some of her works of literature. She was born and grew up in Manhattan and was always controlled by her parents. She grew up as the only child and was overprotected by her mother from facing reality. This made her to rebel. She rebelled against her mother's ways of bringing her up. She was able to go to university at a tender age. She was introduced into the beat by Elise Cowan at her times in Barnard University. It was this time that Ginsberg, who was Elise Cowan’s boyfriend, was experimenting with heterosexuality. This prompted Ginsberg to arrange a blind date between Kerouac and her, which resulted in the two having an affair. During this time, the beat generation was mainly a male affair, and women did very little. They were mere onlookers who kept quiet and watched was going on. Their affair with Kerouac lasted for two years. This was documented by Kerouac in his novel, “Desolation Angels”. It was at this time that Kerouac published the book “On the Road “. Later on, Kerouac became depressed by the fact that he was not wanted by many. He contribution was not only being Kerouac’s Girlfriend but also writing several books. Her book “Come and Join the Dance” was the first Beat novel by a woman.

It was during her period of intimacy with Jack Kerouac that a newspaper review on the Road made him famous, leading to a cultural revolution as the beat generation spread throughout America. Kerouac encouraged Johnson to continue writing and had an impact on her writing style. Some of her famous works of literature include Visions of Cody, Come and Join the Dance and Bad Connections, in the Night Café’ which was based on a true story about her husband, What Lisa Knew: The truth and lies of the Steinberg case among other titles.

Joyce main contributions came through her books which tackled almost the same themes, but the stories were published at different time frames. Her works of literature were mainly about feminism. From most of her publications, women are perceived as becoming independent from men and can live without them. There is sexual liberation, both positively and negatively. This is one element that Joyce Johnson rebels about. She is a proponent of looking at the sexual act from a female dimension.

From the experiences of Carolyn Cassady and Joyce Johnson, it is evident that female beats could not express their ideas freely and did not receive much attention from the publishing world. They were seen as someone's wife or girlfriend.

In conclusion, this paper has defined a Beat generation as a literary movement that was initiated by authors that were significant in building the American culture and politics immediately after World War II (Lawlor, 1998). That the beat generation was seen as rebels against conservative tradition, they did publication on sex, drugs or anything that was viewed as not appropriate by the society. They were referred to as individuals who rebelled against the materialistic society of the American middle class through literature. Ideally, they rebelled against the constraints of society, traditionalism, materialism, militarism, conformism and lack of expression. Women also played a significant role in the beat generation. Two such women were Carolyn Cassady and Joyce Johnson. As much as women were not given publicity, these two women came to glory by being involved with the three proponents of the beat generation. However, Joyce Johnson did more through her publications. It is through such women that the impact of the Beat Generation was felt throughout America. People began to question their society and opted out. This generation led to the growth of hippies which were seen as a counterculture of the 1960s (Williamson & Cloonan, 2016) and anti-war movements. Such women became a significant influence on artists and musicians like Elvis Presley and the Beatles, who played a significant role in bringing out the challenges of racism in America. The significant similarities between women are that both of them were involved with Kerouac, Ginsberg and Neal Cassady; which brought them into fame. Both of them were educated and were brought up in restricted families that hid the reality from them. The significant difference was that unlike Carolyn Cassady, Joyce Johnson was an exceedingly talented writer whose work mainly highlighted her rebellion against feminism.