The Beat Generation: Critical Essays

Economou, George; Myrsiades, Kostas

doi:10.2307/40158231

Cited by 6 publications

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Thomas Pynchon and American Counterculture

Freer

2014

122

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Thomas Pynchon and American Counterculture employs the revolutionary sixties as a lens through which to view the anarchist politics of Pynchon's novels. Joanna Freer identifies and elucidates Pynchon's commentaries on such groups as the Beats, the New Left and the Black Panther Party and on such movements as the psychedelic movement and the women's movement, drawing out points of critique to build a picture of a complex countercultural sensibility at work in Pynchon's fiction. In emphasising the subtleties of Pynchon's responses to counterculture, Freer clarifies his importance as an intellectually rigorous political philosopher. She further suggests that, like the graffiti in Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon creates texts that are 'revealed in order to be thought about, expanded on, translated into action by the people', his early attraction to core countercultural values growing into a conscious, politically motivated writing project that reaches its most mature expression in Against the Day.

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Thomas Pynchon and American Counterculture

Freer

2014

122

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What the Shadows Know: The Crime-Fighting Hero the Shadow and His Haunting of Late-1950s Literature

Mortenson¹

2016

ams

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During the Depression era of the 1930s and the war years of the 1940s, millions of Americans sought escape from the tumultuous times in pulp magazines, comic books, and radio programs. In the face of mob violence, joblessness, war, and social upheaval, masked crusaders provided a much needed source of security where good triumphed over evil and wrongs were made right. Heroes such as Doc Savage, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Captain America, and Superman were always there to save the day, making the world seem fair and in order. This imaginative world not only was an escape from less cheery realities but also ended up providing nostalgic memories of childhood for many writers of the early Cold War years. But not all crime fighters presented such an optimistic outlook. The Shadow, who began life in a 1931 pulp magazine but eventually crossed over into radio, was an ambiguous sort of crime fighter. Called "the Shadow" because he moved undetected in these dark spaces, his name provided a hint to his divided character. Although he clearly defended the interests of the average citizen, the Shadow also satisfied the demand for a vigilante justice. His diabolical laughter is perhaps the best sign of his ambiguity. One assumes that it is directed at his adversaries, but its vengeful and spiteful nature strikes fear into victims, as well as victimizers. He was a tour guide to the underworld, providing his fans with a taste of the shady, clandestine lives of the criminals he pursued. Relishing his

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"It Was My Dream That Screwed Up": The Relativity of Transcendence in On the Road

Haslam¹

2009

crv

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This paper interrogates Jack Kerouac's appropriation and transformation of a Thoreauvian-style transcendentalism by reading On the Road through Mikhail Bakhtin's discussion of the chronotope. Kerouac's chronotopic resistance to dominant visions of the United States brings with it a problematic identity politics, specifically in terms of the racialization of the representation of transcendent identity. Rather than a personal or specific failure of a particular author or text, this tension can be read as a portrayal of the inevitable failure of social critiques that are based on notions of finding an "authentic" identity in a transcendence beyond, and disconnected from, historical and personal contexts. In other words, On the Road can be seen as a portrayal of the problems of an American romantic notion of identity, which makes universal claims about the transcendental potential of the individual. On the Road thus points to a difficulty surrounding dominant US notions of the self-reliance of the individual per se. À la lecture de On the Road par le truchement de la discussion de Mikhail Bakhtin sur le chronotope, le présent article s'interroge sur l'appropriation et la transformation par Jack Kerouac d'un transcendantalisme dans le style de Thoreau. La résistance chronotopique de Kerouac aux visions dominantes desÉtats-Unis comporte une politique identitaire problématique, plus particulièrement en termes de racialisation de la représentation d'une identité transcendante. Plutô t qu'un échec personnel ou particulier d'un auteur ou d'un texte, on peut évaluer cette tension comme un portrait de l'échec inévitable des critiques sociales basées sur la notion qu'il faut trouver une identité « authentique » dans une transcendance déconnectée qui va au-delà des contextes historiques et personnels. En d'autres mots, on peut considérer On the Road comme la représentation des problèmes d'une notion romantique américaine de l'identité qui élargit le potentiel de transcendance de l'individu à l'échelle universelle. On the Road souligne ainsi la difficulté entourant les notions américaines dominantes de l'autonomie de la personne même.

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The Beat Generation: Critical Essays

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Thomas Pynchon and American Counterculture

Thomas Pynchon and American Counterculture

What the Shadows Know: The Crime-Fighting Hero the Shadow and His Haunting of Late-1950s Literature

"It Was My Dream That Screwed Up": The Relativity of Transcendence in On the Road

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