Tom Neal

Detour Detour is a 1945 film noir directed by Edgar G. Ulmer starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage. The film starts off by a piano player Al Roberts drinking coffee at a diner while hitchhiking east from California and song plays on the jukebox which reminds him of his former life in New York City. In the flashback, we learn that Al was bitter about his talent going to waste in a cheap nightclub and so was his girlfriend, so she decided to seek fame in Hollywood, leaving him behind. Later, he decides that he cannot live without her and wants to marry her, leading him to hitchhike his way across the country. In Arizona, Al hitchhikes on a ride from Charles Haskell who is going all the way to Los Angeles to place a bet on a horse, and during this ride he asks Al to pass him pills many times. At night, Al is driving while Haskell is asleep and it starts to rain, so Al tries to wake him up but is unable to. Al then opens the passenger door and Haskell falls out, hitting his head on a rock, and then Al realizes that he is dead. Out of fear that he police will believe that he killed him, he drags out the dead body from the road, steals his clothes, money, ID, and car…

To some extent, the pursuit of hopes and dreams is a method of escaping the realities of everyday life for characters from both texts. In Kerouac’s novel, the dreams of where the road might take them provide an escape for both Sal and Dean from a mundane East Coast lifestyle, and a way to forget the mistakes of the past. Similarly in Thompson’s piece, a voyage of revelation fueled by an underlying desire to understand the American Dream offers a chance to escape for Raoul and his attorney using…

Chandra is a 29-year-old female who was brought to the emergency room by the police after she reportedly try to still a bus. Because she appeared to be an “emotionally disturbed person, “ a mental health evaluation is being requested. According to the detective, Chandra threatened the driver with a knife, took over the almost empty bus, and crashed it into a building. Chandra’s friend, Kelly, was on the bus at the time and shared that they got on the bus at the same time in order to go to the…

homosexual was suffering from a mental disorder called “sociopathic personality disturbance (archive 1) being a homosexual openly would be hard at this time in the 1950’s because people had preconceived ideas of sexual perversion which caused conflict in society. At this time in history expressing your sexuality was more on the conservative side. This is what made Allen Ginsberg an unconventional writer, he was open and honest about being a homosexual. Even if Allen was disliked by many…

beatniks, a parody of the USSR’s “Sputnik” (Enck), the Beat Generation stands in stark contrast to 1950’s American culture. With the rapid emergence of a post-WWII society - suburbs and consumerism, traditional family values and an exclusion of the extreme - entered the authors who rejected it. Their ideology, shocking to those of their time, ultimately led to the creation of a nation-wide literary movement. The roots of this movement took place during 1944 near Columbia University, with the…

Ever wonder what life would be like in the future for us, for our children.There are many theories one of them is seen in the book Unwind by Neil Shusterman. In this book there was a war about abourtion the war ended when both sides decided on a compromise called unwinding. Unwinding is a procedure in which children between the ages of 13 to 18 have there body surgically removed and different people get different parts so instead of eye surgery you can just get a new one. now this book…

Introduction This essay will be an examination of the minimalist elements in the two short stories, ‘They’re not your husband’ and ‘Neighbors’, by Raymond carver. There will be an emphasis on the thematic issues of body image and materialism in the two short stories. Chapter 1 Minimalism Minimalism is a movement in the arts; it arose in the 1950s and was characterized by simplicity and massive forms. Even if minimalism arose in the 50s it was first later, that the term would be used in…

In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess, “That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions.” In the novel, she lived her life outwardly as though she was comfortable and filled with happiness however, inwardly she was confused. Like Edna, Sal Paradise, main character of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road felt confused with how his life was turning out. Sal was living a mundane life until Dean Moriarty turned his apathetic emotions into…

Summary: Unwind by Neal Shusterman is a dystopian novel that revolves around three characters and their different perspectives on unwinding, which detaches people's limbs off and donating them: Connor Lassiter, a troubled kid, is sent to be unwound, Risa Ward is a state ward is to be unwound because of budget cuts in her program, and Lev, a tithe, is being unwound because his parents believe that he should be given back to God. Connor learns of his unwind order and escapes by running out on the…

Allen Ginsberg, along with William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac are poets known as the "beats" and important writers of the beat movement. Ginsberg was born in New Jersey and raised in Paterson, NJ. His father was an english teacher. His mother suffered from mental illness and had a series of mental breakdowns. It affected him growing up. Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac met at Columbia University in 1943. At the time, they were considered "subversive" for their views and behavior. They…