ipl-logo

Conformity In Jack Kerouac's On The Road

1423 Words6 Pages

Why did the Beats reject the middle class expectations of conformity? In order to fully understand and properly answer this question a reader must first define “Beats”. Beats: people or a generation that had a relaxed view towards sex, drugs, and religion; thrived on arts and culture; a sympathetic people. In Jack Kerouac's novel “On the Road” the character Sal and his friends are viewed as Beats, and in the novel Sal is living his life so that he can be satisfied, have a since of freedom, and even fall in love with all people no matter if they are poor, immigrants, or African Americans. In fact, Kerouac or Sal as he is depicted in the book rejects the expectations of middle class conformity along with all the Beats because they were dissatisfied, …show more content…

The constant need of money for drugs, alcohol, housing, and love causes the most of the Beats to become poverty stricken and in someways unable to climb up the economical ladder also the Beats are mostly artists which sometimes does not allow for much pay. This quote from the novel “Ma, what is that fellow?” “Why. that’s a ho-bo.” “Ma, I want to be a ho-bo someday.” “Shut your mouth, that’s not for the like of the Hazards.” But he never forgot that day, and when he grew up, after a short spell playing football at LSU, he did become a hobo. Big Slim and I spent many nights telling stories and spitting tobacco juice in paper containers.” (Kerouac 19). sheds an interesting light on poverty and makes the reader question what they believe poverty is and even maybe make the reader question the American dream. Sal is clearly sympathetic with Slim Jim as he also knows what it is like to suffer from poverty. Although Sal could always just write his aunt for more money he had personally gone through poverty him self. The quote “I stumbled haggardly out of the station; I had no more control. All I could see of the morning was a whiteness like the whiteness of the tomb. I was starving to death. All I had left in the form of calories were the last of the cough drops I’d bought in Shelton, Nebraska, months ago; these I sucked for their sugar. I didn’t know how to panhandle. I stumbled out of town with barely enough strength to reach the city limits.”(Kerouac 62) shows how Sal had a run about with poverty. The message that Sal was trying to convey was that people such as the middle class did not know what the struggle was until they had experienced it first hand as he had. This constant spending of money and moving from place to place causes many Beats to struggle from poverty and grow a rejection towards what the middle

Show More
Related

  • Societal Flaws In Catcher In The Rye

    167 Words  | 1 Pages

    J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye tells the heart-wrenching story of a young teenager’s battle to fit in with the world around him. Although Holden Caufield’s privileged life at home and at Pency Prep, is seemingly ideal, he struggles to find meaning. He travels throughout New York City, witnessing human behavior that depresses him. Some of the issues that most trouble Holden are adult phoniness, religion’s phoniness, and school’s phoniness. Because of Holden’s brother’s death, and his own acute intelligence, Holden is better able to see societal flaws.

    Read More

  • Michael Harington's How I Discovered The Truth About Poverty

    570 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the article “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich gives her view in poverty and explains why she think Michael Harington’s book “The Other American” gives a wrong view on poverty. She explained that Harrington believes that the poor thought and felt differently and what divides the poor was their different “culture of poverty.” Ehrenreich goes on to explain on how the book that became a best seller caused so many bad stereotypes on the poor that by the Reagan era poverty was seen as “bad attitudes” and “faulty lifestyles” and not by the lack of jobs or low paying jobs. And they also viewed the poor as “Dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock.”

    Read More

  • The Poverty Cycle In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

    453 Words  | 2 Pages

    Poverty was the parent Jeanette never had. Through her childhood it was the only thing that was constant and gave her something to learn from. Both of her parents appeared and disappeared just as fast their paychecks and did not set good examples. Her mother enjoyed a free lifestyle with no sense of responsibility, while her father used what was earned for gambling, drinking, or women. Although the poverty Jeanette endoured in her childhood was always there to set its weight on her, it shaped her.

    Read More

  • Issues In The Glass Castle: Controversial Issues

    830 Words  | 4 Pages

    “We haven’t had anything to eat, but popcorn for three days”, “Mom that ham’s full of maggots. Don’t be so picky, just slice off the maggoty parts”. This can be likened to poverty in

    Read More

  • Bell Hooks Seeing And Making Culture Representing The Poor Summary

    1171 Words  | 5 Pages

    People in poverty are generally portrayed as worthless and this is because culture today illustrates a man’s worth from how materially successful they are. Hooks explains how this kind of representation of the poor can mentally and emotionally handicap and entire society of people in poverty. She goes into an example of how a

    Read More

  • Examples Of Poverty In Frankenstein

    1326 Words  | 6 Pages

    Much has been said about poverty over the years. The consistency of poverty in history and its repercussions is disconcerting. The lack of appropriate education can be considered to be the foundation of poverty which often times corresponds with the rise of criminal activity. It is recognized as an insatiable quandary. However, the way that Mary Shelley incorporates poverty into Frankenstein is unheard of and infrequently thought of.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Serving In Florida By Gregory Mantsios

    1318 Words  | 6 Pages

    Mantsios’ compares the profiles of different Americans lifestyles in his text and develops the idea that an individual’s class standing can affect their livelihood in detrimental ways, “The lower one’s class standing, the more difficult it is to secure appropriate housing, the more time is spent on routine tasks of everyday life, the greater is the percentage of income that goes to pay for food and other basic necessities, and the greater is the likelihood of crime victimization” (293). Mantsios explains that one’s class standing can affect the chances of survival and success. Ehrenreich describes her own housing experiences as a low income worker. To reduce her overall costs and to obtain a second job, Ehrenreich moves closer to Key West. Ehrenreich has just enough money to pay the rent and deposit on a tiny trailer at the Overseas Trailer Park.

    Read More

  • Figurative Language And Diction In Eugene Collier's Marigolds

    325 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Eugene Collier’s short story, Marigolds, the author used figurative language and diction to convey a serious and angry tone on poverty. Marigolds, a tale full of voice elements, addressed the theme of poverty with indignation and sincerity. Though Lizabeth, Collier narrated the story; it was about a girl recalling her life during World War 2 in a poor family. In the first example of voice element, Lizabeth described poverty as “the cage in which we all were trapped” (Collier 1). She uses this metaphor to explain how penury anchored her family.

    Read More

  • Conformity In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Essay

    1380 Words  | 6 Pages

    Social Conformity in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest “He Who Marches Out Of Step Hears Another Drum” (Kesey 154). In this modern world, to come to terms with society is to conform to its standards. When a person does not fit the standard mold of a society, they are scrutinized for their divergence.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Greed In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

    1393 Words  | 6 Pages

    When people are poor, they often have a lot of problems in their life. They struggle through every day, but they learn to appreciate everything that they have. However, when people are going through tough times, they often think that money will solve all of their problems. In “A Raisin In The Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, she guides the audience through a black family -- impacted by the need for money -- living on the south side of Chicago. The Younger family gets Lena Younger’s dead husband’s insurance check and buys a house in a white neighborhood, and they save the remainder of the money for Beneatha’s medical degree and for starting a liquor store.

    Read More

  • Intolerance Of Poverty In Gary Soto's The Jacket

    725 Words  | 3 Pages

    One example of this is when Gary takes off the coat, because he would rather be cold than look poor and be made fun of. “Even though it was cold, I took off the jacket during lunch and played kickball in a thin shirt, my arms feeling like braille from goose bumps,” (Soto 5). The fact that Gary preferred to freeze shows just how strong his resentment towards his own poverty really is. Things do not improve for Gary as time goes on. His classmates start to avoid him, rather than be associated with his poverty.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of What Is Poverty Jo Goodwin Parker

    507 Words  | 3 Pages

    The author wants the reader to continously think about what poverty means to her, such as “Poverty is being tired” in paragraph 3, “Poverty is dirt” in paragraph 4, and “Poverty is looking into a black future.” in paragraph 10. This reminds the audience that not everyone suffers from poverty in the same way. For the author, poverty is having to take care of family when all the odds are against you, and this is what gives the reader a perfect understanding of it. As stated in the passage, “Listen to me.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis of 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest'

    1389 Words  | 6 Pages

    Moral Lense Literary Analysis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest The 1950s, the context of which One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a novel by Ken Kesey, was written, was called the Era of Conformity. During this time, the American social atmosphere was quiet conformed, in that everyone was expected to follow the same, fixed format of behavior in society, and the ones who stand out of being not the same would likely be “beaten down” by the social norms. In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey argues that it is immoral for society to simply push its beliefs onto the people who are deemed different, as it is unfair and could lead to destructive results. First of all, it is unjust for people who are deemed unalike from others in society to be forced into the preset way of conduct because human tend to have dissimilar nature.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Poverty In 1984

    721 Words  | 3 Pages

    1984 Synthesis Essay Poverty negatively influences how the minds of people work in the world. The fact that poverty exists itself, obstructs people from changing their circumstances in what is known as “the cycle of poverty.” The lower class is incredibly disadvantaged in that it lacks the necessary social and economic resources needed to increase chances of social mobility. In return, the absence of these resources may increase poverty. Therefore, the lower class is unable to change its situation because the majority believes that any efforts to climb the social ladder is highly inefficient.

    Read More

  • Poverty Is A State Of Mind Essay

    1221 Words  | 5 Pages

    ”You can take the boy out of poverty, but you can never take poverty out of the boy. ”(ll.163-164). Hare uses a metaphor which makes poverty seem like a human trait. Using this metaphor clarifies the point that even if you manage to get out from a certain context, usually to a “higher” social position, some qualities will always remain in you. This trope does at the same time change the figure of speech as the noun poverty is used as a way to describe a person after the comma in the quote, and in that way it makes the word poverty seem more like an adjective.

    Read More

More about Conformity In Jack Kerouac's On The Road

Open Document