The Beat Generation: Literary Analysis

The Beat Generation was heavily influenced by the events of World War II. Jack Kerouac was the original beatnik, with William S. Burroughs, and Charles Bukowski following him. Although other authors built upon Kerouac's work they highly differ in their styles. Beatnik literature reflects the rebellious inner self from the view of post World War II teenagers. The beats also tend to be very experimental with their lives and writing styles. Many believe that "the master narratives strangely seem more alive in the beats' work than they do in the works of modernity" (Johnson), this is a great way to describe the way the beats wrote.
Jack Kerouac's initial poetry and journals had a large impact on the generations writing as a whole. Kerouac's archetype of writing allowed for …show more content…
Kerouac always finds a way to dramatize, “Americas physical and spiritual landscape” (Riordan). This is important to keep in mind for his rise to fame. All of the occurrences in this book match up with Kerouac's life. Duluoz's life is one of depression, addiction, and anxiety, "One fast move or I'm gone,' I realize, gone the way of the last three years of drunken hopelessness... you can't learn in school no matter how many books on existentialism or pessimism you read" (Kerouac, Jack 7). This is a moment of realization that Duluoz has about his life and he wants change, this is the sole reason for the retreat to Big Sur. His addiction also created a downward spiral of his mental state all together, "that feeling when you wake up with the delirium tremens with the fear of eerie death dripping from your ears like those special heavy cobwebs" (Kerouac, Jack 7-8). This is the effects of his drinking and drug problem after he wakes up from blacking out, he is constantly in this state throughout the book, but in reality Kerouac was in this state while he was living, not just as a fictional