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Ja ck Kerouac “Where are we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.”

“Where are we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.”

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Page 1: “Where are we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.”

Jack Kerouac

“Where are we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.”

Page 2: “Where are we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.”

1. Life

• Born in Lowel, Massachusetts in 1922.

• Educated at Columbia University.

• At the end of WWII, he began travelling across the States.

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• In New York he met the intellectual Neal Cassidy and the poet Allen Ginsberg.

• After his hitch-hiking across America with Cassidy, he wrote the novel On The Road (1957).

1. Life

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• Frightened by his popularity, he became more and more addicted to alcohol.

• His novel Big Sur (1962) contains an account of the disintegration of all his hopes.

• He died in 1969 at the age of forty-seven.

1. Life

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Major Works by Jack Kerouac

•The Town and the City, 1950•On the Road, 1957•The Dharma Bums, 1958•The Subterraneans, 1958•Big Sur, 1962•Visions of Gerard, 1963•Vanity of Duluoz, 1968

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• Invented by Kerouac in 1948.

• Introduced to the public by an article on “New York Times Magazine”.

• Beat =

1. tired reaction against capitalism and Puritan middle-class values.

2. beatific Kerouac’s reverence for certain aspects of Catholicism

2. The term “Beat Generation

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• Suffix -nik borrowed from Sputnik, a Russian satellite.

• Their main features: illegal way of life, acting on first impulses.

• They advocated escapism and created underground culture.

3. The beatniks...

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• Spiritual and sexual liberation.

• Liberation from censorship.

• Decriminalization of the use of marijuana.

• The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll.

4. ...and their influence upon artistic movements

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• The spread of ecological consciousness.

• Attention to a “second religiousness”.

• Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures

4. ...and their influence upon artistic movements

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The book The film

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“Because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, (..) the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars”

5. On the Road

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Plot Summary

In the winter of 1947, the reckless and joyous Dean Moriarty, fresh out of another stint in jail and newly married, comes to New York City and meets Sal Paradise, a young writer with an intellectual group of friends, among them the poet Carlo Marx. Dean fascinates Sal, and their friendship begins three years of restless journeys back and forth across the country. With a combination of bus rides and adventurous hitchhiking escapades, Sal goes to his much-dreamed-of west to join Dean and more friends in Denver, and then continues west by himself, working as a fieldworker in California for awhile, among other things. The next year, Dean comes east to Sal again, foiling Sal's stable life once more, and they drive west together, with more crazy adventures on the way at Bull Lee's in New Orleans, ending in San Francisco this time. The winter after that, Sal goes to Dean, and they blaze across the country together in friendly fashion, and Dean settles in New York for awhile. In the spring, Sal goes to Denver alone, but Dean soon joins him and they go south all the way to Mexico City this time.Through all of this constant movement, there is an array of colorful characters, shifting landscapes, dramas, and personal development. Dean, a big womanizer, will have three wives and four children in the course of these three years. Perceptive Sal, who at the beginning is weakened and depressed, gains in joy and confidence and finds love at the end. At first Sal is intrigued by Dean because Dean seems to have the active, impulsive passion that Sal lacks, but they turn out to have a lot more in common. The story is in the details.

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• Story of a friendship.

• Diary-like account of Kerouac’s wanderings across North America.

• It lacks a central plot episodic structure.

• Theme of the journey an escape from the town and from one’s own past

6. On the Road: structure

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• Sal (the narrator) stands for Kerouac himself.

• Dean stands for Kerouac’s friend Neal Cassidy.

• Sal and Dean are linked to the same restlessness.

• They keep on moving without a fixed goal.

6. On the Road: structure

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• A fictionalised Neal Cassidy.

• He lives for “kicks” moments of intense experience and pleasure.

• He is the symbol of the attempt to live every moment with intensity.

7. On the Road: Dean Moriarty, the protagonist

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• Spontaneous and episodic.

• Natural explosion of feelings and thoughts.

• Unsophisticated language, defined “hip talk”.

• Vital, authentic, alive and individual language.

• Opposite to conventional language.

• Break with the impersonality of the artist.

8. On the Road: style and language

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9. On the Road: the film “Coming soon”

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10. The theme of Journey

Travel = Culture

Change ours ideas of culture

Religion

Rules

Know new people

Live with other people

Improve your sense of indipendence

Personality

Lifestyle

History

Literature

Knowledges Different school or work

Change the stereotyps