The Lemon Squeezer Resarch Paper Post 1

    The beat movement, also known as the Beat Generation, is defined as an American literary and social movement originating in the 1950’s. Centered in the bohemian artist communities throughout California, its adherents, who called themselves “beats”, expressed their alienation from conventional society by alienating themselves from social problems while advocating the ideals of self purification and personal release through the “heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism.” (Britannica, 1).
    Centering around the movement is author and poet, Jack Kerouac, born on March 12, 1922, whose literary work On The Road has captured the spirit and essence of the Beat Movement. As a young child, Kerouac attended a French Canadian school while his mother worked at a shoe factor as his father worked as a printer. In his early years, Jack only spoke joual, a Canadian dialect of French, and as a result, despite the fact that he was an American citizen, Kerouac viewed himself as a foreigner of the United States. 
    In 1940, Kerouac attended Columbia University. There, he joined the Columbia football team; however, both his studies and his athletics were interrupted by the events of World War II. In the war, Keroauc served first in the merchant marine and then in the Navy where he was discharged as “a schizoid personality”.
    Immediately after the war, Kerouac had the experiences that shaped him as a writer. He returned to New York  where he met Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, who together, brought the literary movement to life. The word “Beat”, originating from Herbert Huncke, a Times Square junkie, meant “down and out” and signified the most spiritual ‘high’ achievable through the use of drugs. Kerouac once said that the word “beat”, was first used “to signify the feelings of despair and nearness to an apocalypse that impelled them to reach out for new experiences.”. (Lelyveld, 1).
    In his writings, as a result of the music of bebob jazz artists such as Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, his subject became himself and his method was to write as “spontaneously as possible.” (The New York Times, 1). In fact, On The Road was originally written on a scroll in three week blasts. Originally, Kerouac hoped to publish the novel as a scroll to allow his work to flow rather than be interrupted by the turning of pages.
    When finally printed in 1957, Kerouac found himself a national sensation. Suddenly, the Beat Movement became widespread and was infecting the social and political fabric of America. Although he was extremely successful, Kerouac was disappointed in his newly found fame. He believed that he achieved fame for the wrong reason: “little attention went to the excellence of his writing and more to the novel’s radically different characters and its characterization of hipsters and their nonconformist celebration of sex, jazz, and endless movement.” (Britannica, 2).