The Search is what Kerouac Does Best

Going off of the idea of Kerouac that I constructed through On The Road, I expected a lot more from his Dr. Sax. The integration of stream of consciousness and non-linear time paths is interesting but not really my taste. Plus placing so much emphasis on the mystery behind death really is just not appealing to me.

                The matter of Dr. Sax being representative of a sax or art itself was brought up in class. For Kerouac, this comparison fits. The class discussed how Dr. Sax could be hero or is maybe actually sinister and how no one is ever really sure about his true nature. Just as art imitated life, Kerouac cast Dr. Sax in a role that allowed him to imitate life as well. Dr. Sax’s mismatched behavior seems to reflect how no one would ever really be sure about the nature of death, which seems to be what Kerouac is trying to get at. And this dual nature is also seen in Jackie himself with the question of his intent. Kerouac poses these characters with indiscriminate natures to highlight and parallel the true nature of death and of life itself. For death to permeate Book Four  seems almost natural since death is such a large question for Kerouac, of course it would be for his characters as well.

                The ambiguity of whether Dr. Sax is good or not is intentional I feel in order to show how not everything in life is as clear cut as people want it to be. The Snake is what represents evil in the novel. But if good fights against evil, does that mean that Dr. Sax is good? Jackie also has this similarity with the Dr. Jackie is caught between being a good friend and a thief. In this way I can see a similarity between the two individuals.

                Dr. Lennon’s first slide on Wednesday made a comment that the novel ultimately is about growing up. The notion of growing up fits perfectly with this book because it seems to be Kerouac’s way to work through the mysteries of life. All of the major life issues that children must face and try to figure out are what the book is focusing on, a major one being death. Kerouac writes about the comfort he gains from art and spending time with his mother while they were ill to try to overcome death and the fear that it instilled in him. But ultimately it failed. Dr. Sax is Kerouac’s chronicle of his passage into adulthood more or less. He, along with Jackie, tries to figure out and face the ultimate truth: everyone dies. Even in his book On The Road, Kerouac’s uneasiness about life was apparent. He goes in search of something to finally define his life but never really attains it. Kerouac spends his life trying to obtain “it.” And so his characters main focus is to find “it” as well. Dr. Sax is an engaging book, but it is too much confusing circular thinking for me. 

What I Have Learned

On the first day of class I was only vaguely aware of whom the Beats were, and I had no clue what they stood for. The last nine weeks for me has been a conversation about morality, freedom, individuality, and spirituality that helped to put these writers’ ideals into perspective. Without that perspective, the predominantly male value system of the Beats could come off annoyingly disjointed and uncomfortably misogynistic.

                                                                        Freedom

The main theme of the course for me has been the notion of freedom. The standard of freedom that is described by Jack Kerouac in his novel On the Road is a standard of uninhibited motion and experience. Kerouac wanted to experience every corner of the world as well as every race. And yes, that is pretentious to believe that he can literally experience an entire history and cultural environment of a different race but he still wanted to feel free enough to do that. During class, the teacher poised the question if Kerouac’s desire to experience being other races’ was authentic, even though it was incredibly racist. I feel that his desire was authentic because of how he discusses having the experience. Even though his words are slanted with racist stereotypes, his tone is very rarely one of animosity.

            The image that I constructed of Kerouac ultimately clashed with the image of he created of himself in the novel because I, for a bit, could not understand how a man could want both the road and a family. But a better understanding of Kerouac’s notion of freedom came from Burroughs’ pieces. Burroughs’ influence on Kerouac was visible through his darkly masculine tone filled with curiosity. Burroughs, just like Kerouac, insisted on experiencing everything he found interesting, especially

            Burroughs’ factual and darkly themed writings applied a very matter-of-fact notion to the idea of freedom. Burroughs seems to expect nothing more from the world than the chance to experience. Throughout the beginning of this course I have learned to experience the idea of freedom as an ideal that is not limited to the typical American Dream sense of freedom.

                                                The American Dream

            Along with expanding my opinions about what the term freedom actually means, I have learned about the development of the American Dream. The typical image of the American Dream is the white picket fence, wife/kids, and a house. This version of the dream is explored in Kerouac’s idealized future for himself in his novel. But even though he has a desired outcome in mind, Kerouac always seems to be pulled away by the lure of the road. In his short piece “The Vanishing American Hobo” Kerouac delves into the disappearance of the traveler ideal in American culture.  The death of the hobo in Kerouac’s piece can also be seen as the death of his dual American Dream. Kerouac recognized that he could not live both as a family man and a man of the road. This duality can also be seen in Burroughs’ work as well. Burroughs maintains a family while still maintaining his investigative side.

            Throughout the first nine weeks of the class I have been able to formulate a clear image of what the Beats stood for and what they fought for. 

Di Prima and the Beats

The first time through Diane Di prima’s works was a bit jarring to say the least. While certain stylistic choices such as the non-capitalization was easy to spot as important but some of the subject matter eluded me. The process of going over each section that we did in class really helped to explain more of the motives behind her work.

Di Prima’s resistance to social and gender standards comes through her seemingly purposeful shirking of traditional grammatical structure. It also comes through her subject matter. In the first piece, Di Prima discusses the potato and red sauce mush that they called menstrual pudding. This vivid imagery connected with the female body is jarring to the audience as well as shocking, just as Di Prima wanted.

But I argue that her writing does reveal her insecurities and her resistance to normal societal ways but does not establish her as a wholly radical individual. The image that arose from her writings was of a girl resisting her parent’s preconceived notions, not the norms of the world. Di Prima depicts herself in a more traditional role. She is frequently described as being in the kitchen when anything major happens, like family holidays or the cleaning of their new place. On page 28 of Di Prima’s “What I Ate Where” the first line of the piece is “the rats had already been several weeks in my kitchen.” She makes a point to designate the kitchen as her own.

For me Di Prima is a symbol of the Beats more akin to Jack Kerouac than Allen Ginsberg. The desire to reject social customs is there but there are still traces of normalcy within their lives. Kerouac could not totally give himself over to being a hobo and Di Prima could not give herself wholly over to being a radical female figure.

Another way that I connected Di Prima with Kerouac was her persistence on the subject of having a child. But even when she gave birth, the child did not become the center of her life. That statement could be seen in a negative life but only if Di Prima was a neglectful mother. I have not researched her mothering ways to any extent but from her writings her parenting skills did not seem to suffer due to still trying to maintain a somewhat normal life. Just as Kerouac wished for a family while longing for the rode, Di Prima wants the love of her little family and a life that is her own as well.

Whether she was forced in some way, by society or the people around her, to stay in a somewhat more traditional role or the chose to maintain some sense of social norms of the time, I do not know. Maybe my view of her as a Beat figure is skewed by the dominantly male Beat voice we have read so far in class.

The presence of the Beat culture for me was more apparent in Di Prima’s “Conversations.” With her confusing dialogue, reminiscent of Burroughs, and the seemingly fluid nature to the peace, reminding me of Kerouac’s non-structured structure, Di Prima shows her Beat side and the more masculine side to her writing. 

The Cyles

Gary Snyder’s poems represent a totally different aspect to the Beats. Compared with Allen Ginsberg’s focus on the holy nature found in the gutters, Snyder finds his holiness within nature. For me, this focus on the more naturalistic side to the human experience was a huge relief. Even though all of the Beats writers we have read so far dealt with some form of freedom, Snyder raises the idea of freedom being connected with nature. Snyder deals with nature through a cyclical image.

                The very first poem “Axe Handles” demonstrates Snyder’s emphasis on the passage of knowledge through the generations. The narrator speaks of his teachers being an axe, himself being an axe, and that his son will soon be an axe. The image of the axe also helps to put emphasis on the idea of the knowledge being passed down as being important for one’s own life. The axe is a useful tool that allows individuals to do many different jobs. The act of correlating the person with the tool gives the impression that from gaining this ancient wisdom a person will become a successful individual.

As well as providing an image of a successful person, Snyder’s representation of the passage of knowledge as a way to pass on the history of the people itself. Snyder’s last line in “Axe Handles” is “how we go on.” He refers to the act of each coming generation will soon turn into an axe and gain coveted wisdom.  In addition to being the representation of a human tradition, the child in the poem serves as a progression of the human culture as Snyder says: the “craft of culture.”

Snyder’s theme of a cyclical wisdom is also seen in his poem “Changing Diapers” and “For/From Lew.” The theme of passing knowledge from one generation onto the next is seen through the eyes of another father. The father of the infant boy describes how he changes his son’s diaper and a poster of Geronimo.  Geronimo serves a masculine authority within the poem. In the last stanza, Snyder says he, his son, and Geronimo are men. Geronimo stood as a man of principle. In “For/From Lew,” Snyder holds a conversation with a deceased friend who perished from a seemingly self-inflicted gunshot wound. The ghost tells the narrator that he has come back to “teach the children about the cycles.” This emphasis on children learning the life cycles illuminates how important it was to Snyder that the younger generation learns about the world, as Snyder says: “That’s what it’s all about.”

In “Old Woman Nature” Snyder explores the relationship between Nature and the actual cycles of life.  In this poem Snyder places Nature as the matriarchal figure who takes care of others. When the poem first starts, Old Mother Nature is described as having grotesque things such as a “bag of bones” and “fox scat with hair and tooth in it.” Then at the end the narrator remarks about Mother Nature making soup. Soup as a symbol is usually associated with getting better, prospering, or care giving. The two images of Mother Nature that Snyder present help to represent the dichotomy between the cycle of death and birth, as well as Nature being the provider along with the usurper of life. 

The American Hobo as a Symbol

In Jack Kerouac’s “the Vanishing American Hobo” he discusses the image of himself as a hobo as well as the image of the hobo itself. Kerouac cites his literary efforts as his separation from the true hobos along with the fact that he still had hope for other things beyond simply getting by. Throughout the piece Kerouac paints an idealistic picture of the hobo, bringing in Buddhist poems in addition to the positive wording towards the hobos’ pursuits. For me, Kerouac replaced the abstract concept of the American Dream with a very tangible subject: the hobo. He discusses how the hobo citing many individuals who helped shape America as well as modern society. 

The American Dream is reflected in Kerouac’s hobo through classifying it as “the American Hobo” as well as characterizing the hobo’s journey as his “idealistic lope to freedom” (172-173). Throughout most of Kerouac’s works he discusses the idea of himself searching for the American Dream. This search is reflected in his investigation of the ways of the hobo. For Kerouac, the American Dream as well as true hoboism is just out of reach. Kerouac is too restless to settle down with a white picket fence and wife as well as not hopeless enough to be able to lose himself in travel.

 Along with identifying the hobo with the American Dream, Kerouac also uses language that emphasizes the almost universal language of the hobo such as “universal brother” or “the original hobo dream” (172-173). This inclusive language allows people to feel that hobos have meaning and even a founding myth, and that the hobo is connected to some larger picture or family. Then Kerouac goes onto define the hobo, but not just the American hobo but the universal hobo. On page 178, Kerouac introduces how hobos act in Paris and other places. This additional description serves to help root the idea of the hobo as a universal phenomenon more concretely in the readers’ minds. But Kerouac does still list America as the “motherland of bumdom” (178). This classification of America illustrates Kerouac’s idea of America being the leader in personal freedom as well as the only place that offers a more universal connection instead of people not being able to understand one another. Kerouac also makes a distinction between hobos and bums. This difference for Kerouac is that of pride. Once a hobo loses his pride he becomes a bum. This discrepancy parallels that of the one between searching for the American Dream and simply living.

                There is also a theme of impermanence and destruction in Kerouac’s “the Vanishing American Hobo” when he discusses the deterioration of the American hobo. Kerouac correlates the decline of American freedom and individuality with the downturn of the freedom of the American hobo. Kerouac’s imagery of the police showing up to questions his intentions about camping highlight the suspicion that was occurring in America around this time due to the changing social and political atmosphere.  

                Also, I found it very interesting that on page 182, Kerouac presents the idea of a possibly “healthy way” that is “in good shape” for the American hobo to travel is by hiding and gathering in cemeteries. Cemeteries are associated with death and endings, and for Kerouac the ideal of the American hobo was coming to an end so it is only fitting that they seek refuge in a place built for death. 

The Apple of Knowledge and Self-Awareness

When I first started reading “The Dutchman” I thought it was just another piece about race. But I soon realized it was much more. Weaving undertones of social oppression and digestion throughout the work, Amiri Baraka creates a play that rises above the simple category of race but delves into the tension of racial assimilation. Lula as a character is representative of the white culture and Clay of black culture.  Throughout the play Lula tries to tell Clay about how much she knows about “him.” As a character, I hated Lula. Her repetitious nature as well as her presumptions made her extremely unlikeable and annoying. Clay was the exact opposite for me. One member in my group made a comment about his outburst at the end being terrifying. I never took it as such. For me it was the inevitable outcome to Lula being a know-it-all culture stealer.

                The question was raised in class about what kind of person Clay is and whether or not he knew what was going on from the beginning. While most felt that he was naïve at first and more aware of his absorption of white culture at the end, I disagree. When I read the play I felt like Clay knew all along that he was trying to adapt something that was not his, and really just wanted to be left alone. Clay’s self-awareness is visible in his witty comebacks: “But the rest of the weight is yours,” “I really wasn’t prepared for party talk,” and “Why do you want to sound so old.” Clay matches Lula’s questions and comments with the same power she displays. Also, during Clay’s towards the end he says, “My people. They don’t need me to claim them. They got legs and arms of their own.” This comment for me is the solidifier to the idea that he is aware of his adoption of the white culture, or of social norms in general. Clay simply wants to be left in peace: “If I’m a fake middle-class white man…let me be. Let me be in the way I want.” Clay’s awareness can also be seen through the apples that Lula provides. While she continues to eat them, he stops after the first one. The notion of the apple also appears after Clay talks back to Lula after she makes a comment about them not knowing each other.  After Lula says she knows Clay like the back of her palm, he retorts by asking if it is the same hand she eats the apples with. Lula comes back to say that it is also the one she opens her door with. This bit of conversation alludes to Lula’s indiscretions with African Americans and how she feels that these instances make her knowledgeable about Clay. For Lula, the apple is a huge symbol. It is a symbol of power, knowledge, wealth, and allowance. The apple of knowledge allows her to act the way she does without feeling guilty and as she says, “Eating apples together is always the first step.” While Clay accepts the knowledge of the world he has and tries to move past it, Lula uses her knowledge to fuel her dominating nature.

                Also, Clay’s self-awareness can also be seen close to the end of the play when he comments: “Wow. All these people, so suddenly. They must all come from the same place.” And when Lula asks if he is scared of them, Clay asks why they should frighten him. Clay and Lula see the world in two different ways. While Clay knows of the attempted adoption of cultures and just tries to make his way through it, Lula uses it as a path to destruction. Lula, just as white individuals were seen for a long time in history, is a dominating, all-consuming force that sweeps Clay away to his death. “The Dutchman” is a play about culture adoption and the possible suffocation of one of the cultures: ultimately seeming to be the black culture. 

The Videos

Just like the differences in their writing, the two videos show those differences in the styles and ideas portrayed in the videos. Firstly, the subject of religion and faith is brought up in both video clips. For the man in Burroughs’ film, God and faith is the path to the “immaculate fix” and a holy experience. But for the group of thinkers in Kerouac’s film, faith leaves them and the bishop denies any recognition of their ideas. Burroughs’ film is structured almost as a Christmas story from back in the day, similar to “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  With Christmas music playing in the background, it is implied that the Junky has learned a moral lesson by the uplifting music in the background. This affirmation of God that is presented in Burroughs’ film is reinforced with the strong religious language such as inserting Christ throughout the piece. With Kerouac’s film, Milo’s friends gather around the bishop, a symbol of God, and beg him to tell them if everything is holy. The Bishop skips around the subject never giving a definitive answer, and then finally excusing himself and his mother.  While Milo and his friends look for affirmation of faith from the man who is closest to God, the Junky finds affirmation from being truly selfless. The Junky’s tale being seen as one of personal spiritual transformation is also seen in the structure of the film. With the older gentlemen reading from the book, the clay figures, and then the final shot of the family celebrating Christmas together leads the audience to feel the moral heaviness of the piece. While in Kerouac’s film, it is simply people gathering in a room to discuss the holiness of their world. Even though the men in Kerouac’s film are more socially mobile than the junky in Burroughs’ piece, the Junky seems to have the spirituality and faith that Kerouac’s characters are after.

                Burroughs’ writing style is more upfront and explanatory while Kerouac tries unconventional methods to get his point across. The bluntness exhibited by Burroughs lends itself more to a moral tale than Kerouac’s since it reads with more fluidity. The original story by Burroughs’ for me was a tale of a man finding a more morally correct path in life. For Kerouac, I felt that he was simply writing to try to convey an idea.

                I also saw an interesting interaction when Milo’s child was being walked to school by his mother. The child asks his mother if he actually needs to go to school and the mother responds with all the subjects the child does need to go to school for. This interaction between mother and son seemed to suggest the influence of social forces on the members of society. The mother adds “ology” to every subject, showing her separation from society’s vein of thinking. The son shows his rebellion against society when he awakes late at night and starts to play his trumpet with his father. This interaction is critical in order to show the audience how ideas were passed down.

                Just as Professor Lennon mentioned in class, Bill Burroughs is an extreme of the Beat generation.  This extreme can be seen in his approach to the ideas presented by the Beat generation and the difference in how Kerouac presents these same ideals.