ELIT 48C Class 33

Adverse / Averse

Adverse / Averse

0Adverse means harmful or unfavorable. 0Adverse reactions to this medication have

been noted in 40% of patients.0Averse means reluctant or opposed to.0He was not averse, however, to taking

chances for himself.

Chair Poet?

AGENDA

0New Teams 5-60The Beats0Big Sur

0 Postmodernism0 Style0 Themes

New Groups: Three Minutes!

1. You must change at least 50% of your team after each project is completed.

2. You may never be on a team with the same person more than twice.

3. You may never have a new team comprised of more than 50% of any prior team.

Discuss: Big SurPostmodernism, Themes, and Style

Five minutes!

The Beats0The literary movement called the Beat Generation burst

into American consciousness with two books published in the late 1950s. The first, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems (1956), stirred both controversy and an obscenity trial for Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who offered copies for sale in his San Francisco bookstore.

0The second book, Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) had a profound cultural effect when it was published. It was the Beat Generation’s manifesto.

Kerouac Ginsberg

CassidyFerlinghetti

The Beats and Postmodernism

Postmodern Aspects

• Kerouac faced a postwar era caught between dwindling modernism and emerging postmodernism. This was a time of transition and experimentation and Kerouac personifies that era.

• One example of the confluence of the two periods shows in how he relies on his religious background yet at the same time questions it by exploring other religions. Kerouac was a dedicated Catholic, yet his open-mindedness to other religions demonstrates that modernism and post-modernism can be embraced simultaneously.

• Other postmodern aspects of Big Sur• Stream of consciousness and thought, or as Kerouac himself liked to call it

“spontaneous prose,” which forced him to include all of the details of his experience.

• Explicit themes of sexual encounters• Alcoholism• Fragmentation• Isolation• Mental Illness

Style and Themes

StyleGenre

Roman à clef: literally translated: novel with a key: a novel in which real events and people figure under disguise.

This is a fictional novel, but it is based on the real events of a six week period in Kerouac's life.

Yet, we must consider that Big Sur is a work of fiction. While the events and people are real, Kerouac has used his imagination in creating the complete work.

SettingThe novel is called Big Sur. We can assume the setting is important.

NarratorThe first person narrator creates an intimacy between narrator, story,

and reader.It also forces us to question his reliability.

Themes

0Drugs and Alcohol0Madness0Mortality0 Isolation0Spirituality

QHQ: Culture vs. Counterculture

0How is the American middle class portrayed in Big Sur?0 I suppose the family that drives past him when he tries to

hitchhike represent America?0 Considering the situation of the tourist and the struggling

narrator being allegorical of class division, what can the blisters represent?

0 How can this emergence of the middle class be reconciled with this emergence of the beatnik in the same postmodern world?

0 Is he talking about how America is very shallow and cares only about appearances?

0 Based on this text, does Jack portray the beat lifestyle as “better” or “worse” than the typical American lifestyle?

0How does Jack Kerouac’s method of stream of consciousness writing compare to earlier writers who attempted to capture the same internal processes in different ways?

0 Is Kerouac’s iconic diction and syntax the best choice for the success of this novel’s message?

0Does Kerouac care if people are able to extract a main message from his work, or is he writing simply “for art’s sake”?

0 Is Kerouac’s writing meant to be a tribute to the new modern Beatnik culture or a rejection of normal writing style?

0 Is there a dark tone focused in this story?

0How does the history of the Bay Area relate to Kerouac’s perspective of America’s transformation?

0What is up with narrator always being alone and only having his pet cat, Tyke, as the sole source that he can just let himself go and just play?

0Why doesn’t the narrator deal with the loss of his brother, instead of trying to replace him?

0What do the death’s in Jack Kerouac’s “Big Sur” signify?0Why does the narrator feel he’s going crazy? Seeing flying

saucers… and sometimes even saying he might be going mad. “…before I went mad I still had such preoccupations)” beginning of ch6

HOMEWORK

0Read Lesbian, gay, and queer criticism0Post #31

0 Explore how you might apply this criticism to texts we have read.

0 QHQ