What I Learned/What I Want to Learn

Freedom:

While freedom is regarded as the ultimate attribute to obtain, the Beats show its complications and test how much “freedom” others can take, and where the quest for self-fulfillment can lead to selfishness.  For them, freedom meant the ability to do whatever they wanted and live the lifestyle they chose to, no matter how unconventional it seemed to others. They could just travel across the country at will, sleep with whomever they wanted to, do drugs, and write about whatever subject matter they pleased.

Their choices also affect others around them, often in a negative way. Neal leaves everyone he comes across in On the Road and never feels the need to apologize for it. Whether it be leaving Kerouac sick in Mexico or abandoning any of his ex-wives with his children, Neal’s desire to be free of all responsibilities overrides what many of us would consider to be common decency.

However, freedom does have its merits as well. Everyone is constantly told to “be true to yourself” and the Beats did that, no matter how strange society might have saw it, and there is something to be admired in that. On top of that, the Beats were also able to develop unique writing styles that they would never have been able to if they stuck to conventional thinking. Ginsberg would smash words that shouldn’t go together in Howl just to get an image across. Kerouac’s stream of consciousness style and lack of punctuation allowed him to make his readers experience his writing instead of just simply reading it. Diane Di Prima also didn’t subscribe to a normal prose style making her work sound conversational, like she was writing all her thoughts into a diary.

Contradictions:

The Beats had many conflicting ideas and attitudes. Di Prima lived as she liked for the most part and chose to raise her child as she saw fit instead of submitting to traditional values, but she still felt pressure from society to conform to gender roles and sometimes she caved (which is definitely not a criticism against her).  All of the Beats are seen admiring jazz and Kerouac especially elevates black jazz players into god like figures, but they end up being oblivious to the casual racism they perpetuate.

What I Want to Learn:

I really appreciated learning biographical facts about all the writers and who influenced them. However, I would like to know what writers have been influenced by the Beats themselves. How have they impacted popular culture? Has their unique writing styles caused anyone else to experiment with how language can be used?

I’d also like to know what ended up happening to the Beats after their most popular work was published. Obviously they continued to write, but were their later efforts ever as celebrated or acclaimed? How did the group feel when LeRoi Jones joined the black nationalist movement and seemed to specifically target what they had written about race in Dutchman?  Did the group continue to remain friends for the next few decades?