My two passages

                The first time I read “Howl” I had no idea what was going on. But having to sit down and actually work through a passage to create a thesis was actually very helpful and enlightening. The pictures of the graphic novel helped as well, not all were a perfect representation as Professor Lennon pointed out, but it allowed me to view the poem as a poem of people and movement, not just words. “Howl” is a poem of challenging society norms as well as pushing the boundary of people’s thinking.  The first passage I analyzed was on page 61 and started with “who bit detectives.” The first thing I did was look up the word pederasty, since I did not know it. The definition was of someone who has anal intercourse with people especially young boys.  This term made more sense after I analyzed the first part of my passage. Ginsberg portrays the police force as intrusive and suspicious. It is not just the police that are investigating the people, but detectives. The use of the word detective gives the passage more weight. The idea of biting the detectives in the neck hints at the action of taking the police down where they are most vulnerable or at least tried to. The second line of the passage discusses how the people being arrested participated in no crime but doing something that may not be deemed normal by society such as pederasty or intoxication of any nature. The passage as a whole gave a sense of Ginsberg or the people who he surrounded himself with being persecuted by society for their beliefs. As someone mentioned in class on Wednesday, Ginsberg’s choice of words adds a criminalizing agent to the idea of homosexuality. Ginsberg through this passage highlights the persecution he felt by society simply for believing and doing the things he did.

                My second passage is on page 107 and discusses the idea of conformity. The first thing that I noticed when I read this passage was the first few words “who drove crosscountry.” This idea of driving across the continent was reminiscent of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. Since Ginsberg and Kerouac were friends, a crossover of ideas was not too surprising. With Kerouac, the idea of going across the continent to obtain “it” was something that he was compelled to do. But for Ginsberg I think he is trying to get across the idea that this chasing after enlightenment might be something that is not all that unique. To support this idea of conformed enlightenment, Ginsberg goes on to say “if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find eternity.” This phrasing suggests that the search for enlightenment is not unique to any one person. Ginsberg spent most of “Howl” trying to tell his message of the downfalls of society and through this simple phrasing he illuminates how even a spiritual interaction may not be as singular as once thought. On other major thing that I found in the passage is the reference to driving precisely seventy two hours crosscountry. I found that adding this number to a passage about prophets and finding eternity was purposeful. Seventy two hours is exactly three days which is the time it took for Christ to come back from the dead as the prophet of God. This time reference is used to reinforce the idea of the prophet who brings the word, even if he is Christ himself, possibly being anyone else.