Jack Kerouacs Road to Postmodernity

cocksucker Kerouacs bridle-path to Postmodernity jackfruit Kerouacs Road to Postmodernity Tracing the Beat Rhythm by means of Lyotardian Sensibility.Dr. Ashima BhardwajAbstract Jack Kerouac was an author of the paintingic schoolbook On the Road that gave birth to the Beat Generation in the States. He was the spokesperson of this frenzy movement who also bugled the advent of Postmodernity in America frequently earlier than the claimed Euro-centric origins of the movement. The aim of the paper is to critique On the Road utilizing the critical equipment of denim Franoise Lyotard, a valueer of the late 20th century. The clarity of his thoughts helped to define the postmodernist tendencies prevalent in the works of Kerouac. The text showcases that postmodernism did not emerge in the artistic or cultural argonnas of European Sixties just now was a product of much earlier Ameri ass Post-war convertal years. His work dust an epilogue to Modernism and a prologue to Postmodernism. The paper would contend that the Ameri asshole postmodern in literature begins with Beat writings.Keywords Postmodernism, Beat movement, Paralogy, Metanarrative, Grand narrative, Differend, purify.Postmodernism has been a vital instrument in the tool box of critical possible action. Much earlier the coinage of the term Postmodernism in the criticism spoken communication, the Beat writer Jack Kerouac had bugled its advent by denouncing the rigid societal structures in his writing means, account and even in the panache he lived. The paper would scrutinize the text of On the Road from the perspective of denim Franoise Lyotards critical framework. Lyotards philosophy highschoollights the postmodern tendencies that have been an innate part of Kerouacs repertoire. Lyotardian innovations would be extremely relevant in interpreting the transitional Post-war phase in America. In the process the comp cardinalnt part of On the Road in establishing postmodernity in America would become microscopical. Kerouacs originative work On the Road was a stimulus to the tremors of arriving postmodernity in America much before the European claims of the movements inheritance. The story trans physiqueed the American literary state of matterscape and a Beat Generation raised its head from the dingy alleys, cr haveing Jack Kerouac- the King of Beatniks.Kerouacs works and heart depicts an advent of Postmodernism much before it is registered in the European criticism. The Postmodernism as a phenomenon was prevalent in 1940s in America instead of the claimed decade of 1960s in Europe. Jack Kerouacs lifestyle and the body of his works bespeak of the transitional layover where postmodernity began to emerge. The literary notoriety comeed by Kerouac, the hyped image of him as the trendiest fashion icon by media and his being a writer for being famous are the effects of the postmodernist tremors in womb. Kerouacs work On the Road plays an definitive role in giving birth to Postmodernism. Kerouac has alluded to this changing era with his rhetorical break through with(predicate), acuity and originality.Postmodernism, as a term, contains its own paradox. The word post refers to an outcome as well as it includes the sense of being constructed on the institution of Modernism. In Lyotards work The Postmodern Condition A Report on Knowledge, he differentiates between modernist and postmodernist art. He argues that the art forms of these periods incorporate marvelous and also express the inexpressible. Lyotard states that the modernist art reduces the enormity of an event to a perceptible form. But the postmodern work by contrast presents the un-presentable in debut itself and in the process denies the work to have a recognizable form. postmodernist art refuses to be contained by the accepted notions of art forms. In this vein, Kerouac has called his novel On the Road an Epos- falling outside the definition of an epic. Kerouacs writing style was th e original shock to the accepted ways of book writing. The first var. of On the Road was written in record twenty days, wizard spaced paragraph of 175,000 words, typed on a 120 foot big taped paper scroll. It is said that Kerouac took the scroll to Robert Giroux, the editor of Harcourt Brace and rolled it out. But Giroux asked him how he could print that. Books could not be afforded to look give care it. This novel became a legend.Kerouac was aware of the repercussions as he had given a voice to the silenced and the marginalized communities in the work. He had destabilized the hierarchical standards. Hereby compatibility can be observed with Lyotardss Postmodernism. For Lyotard, Postmodernism is not a chronologically demarcated period. It is a answer to a changing refinement. Lyotards idea of Postmodernism, stresses on the need of recognizing the failings in a system and resisting the dominant modes in practice. Kerouacs work gives the c repose stage to the marginalized form s that form the very crux of Beat life. The novel describes a trans-racial, transgendered countercultural backdrop. It defines those changes which surfaced up in the post-war generation. America was the only country to emerge as a jumper lead power from the ashes of the World Wars. The Eisenhower era followed the dictum of least interference. The state absolved from an active participation in the lives of the citizens. The stability so achieved was temporal as insecurities were depicted in maniacal car journeys by the heroes of Kerouacs work. In Lyotardian terminology it can be run acrossn as breaking of a high-and-mighty narrative.Lyotards concept when applied to the novel magnified the areas depicting heterogeneity. In the novel On the Road, Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) and doyen Moriarty (Neal Cassady) journey across America and towards the end they sign up a trip to Mexico. The journeys of the two heroes emphasized on the multi-perspectives of viewing a nation and strengthe ned the notions of believing in the necessity of difference. The novel powerfully rejected the defining narratives. In Lyotards sensibility, the Metanarratives fail in a postmodern world. In the post- industrial society, the grand narratives of Speculation and Freedom also collapse. Lyotard take a firm stand that no effort should be made to conceive a universalizing narrative. This breaking of narratives was essential. It gave space to the multitudes of stories that were subdued earlier by the Metanarrative. The two American measurings are in the as severalize of IT which is a fathomless ecstasy. They are poor and beat raft but the spiritual search in their conscious minds elevates them. They gain beato the beatific existence in their journey. Sal and deans mateship saw many ups and downs but it was always the road which joined them. Kerouacs text is the prophetic roadmap charting a search for life in the fellaheen world lying on the verge of the consumerist westward civil ization. The novel has an inbuilt tendency of non-conformism. The characters have offered resistance in their own unique way. They use do drugss for getting ecstatic experience. Sex becomes a impregnable tool to shatter the traditional ways of thinking. The non-conformism displayed by the characters synchronizes with the concepts of Lyotard. His postmodernism involves an interrogation of the hegemonic structures organise by the society.The journey taken by Sal Paradise and dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) becomes a kaleidoscopic search for life. Sal undertakes the journey to escape the monotonous life and to tame depression from a failed marriage and illness. He takes four trips along with another(prenominal) beat figures across America. Hitch- hiking on his route, he wants to reach the Promised Land of Denver. On his truck ride he becomes aware of multiple narratives which go into the do of a nation. He receives a cultural shock in a Wild western hemisphere Week celebration. In this event a simulacra of the uncreated Texas glory is created. tidy sum imitate Texan life in cowherd hats and boots. This simulation is far way from squareity. Sals stay at Chad Kings house in Denver reveals the downside of rising capitalism. Chads father had invented a spot remover that was now copied by a big firm. While Chads family lived in poverty, the company was soaring high in pro passs. Capitalism had made people subservient to its demands. In the mention of progress, Lyotard says that system becomes a vanguard machine which is dragging humanity and de-humanizing it. People are hegemonized by totalitarian converses, grand narratives and metanarratives.Kerouac shows how the upcoming Postmodernity is an incredulity displayed towards such metanarratives. There are two types of grand-narratives- the narrative of emancipation and big grand narrative. In the grand narrative of emancipation, knowledge becomes a liberating force. Kerouac thus attempts to cater an antidote to metanarrative and grand narrative constructions of prosperity under the garb of Capitalism. The speculative grand narrative ends in a realization of the state of non-progress. withal Postmodernist void becomes prominent as in the Wild West Week, and thus the grand narrative of emancipation breathes its last. Sal Paradise also declares that he can feel the world collapsing around him. He has understood the crudeness of America and thus the idealistic visions start evaporating.Sal meets Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg) in Denver. Carlo makes him realize through his poems that linguistic communication itself has a linear progression and dreams are a Mosaic of the figments of imagination. Sal witnesses the disintegration of myths thus upholding the advent of postmodernity. In LA he meets a Mexican girl, Terry. They make discern and she tells him to believe in manana tomorrow things would be better. Kerouac makes his protagonist feel the presence of the Grey myth of the West and dog ged myth of the East. Death becomes the ultimate reality that Sal is dismayed of. Here unrivalled can see a parallel of Kerouacs beliefs and Lyotards philosophy. Lyotards Postmodernism is differentiated from Modernism as it exhibits a celebration instead of fear. This fear finds a vent in the make-up of dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) for he is a performer who is not afraid of anything- not even death. Sal sees that doyen was mad in his movements that includeda shaking of the head, up and down, sideways jerky, vigorous hands quick walking, sitting, product the legs, uncrossing, getting up, rubbing the hands, rubbing his fly, hitching his pant, looking upand sudden slitting of the eyes to see eachwhere (Kerouac, On the Road 110)Dean in his madness embodies the Lyotardian article of belief of Paralogy. Lyotard argues that in modern science the parvenue discoveries that take place up to(p) up revolutionary(a) language games. They defy the existing norms thus changing our former opinions. Paralogy- the fase logic has the potential to revert the existing understanding of the world. In the novel, Dean becomes the fountainhead of power that destabilizes logic. In Postmodern transitions, Paralogy of Dean helps to from new language games nullifying every other format. Postmodernism is not then an utterly forlorn era where anything goes, rather it is a continuum where resistance has to take birth. The pinnacle of Deans games is reached where he asks Sal to make love to his girlfriend Marylou in order to see how she makes love to another man. Sex here becomes a beatific experience where, cardinal children of the earth try(ing) to decide something in the night and having all the weight of ag unmatched centuries ballooning in the dark before them. (Kerouac, OTR 125). At one tear Sal justifies Deans fulfillment of physical love. For him it becomes a medium to relish physical one of the source of life bliss, and a way of returning to innocence. For Sal, love beco mes a refuge. Late in their journey, Dean shows the way to throw off every burden. He convinces Sal and Marylou to strip and run wild celebrating their existence.Sal and Dean visit hoar Bull Lee (William Burroughs). They take drugs which become a mode to enter into ecstasy. Old Bull Lees drug intake has led him to an awareness of seven personalities within him, each growing worse and worse.The top personality was an side Lord, the bottom an idiot. Halfway he was an old negro (Kerouac, OTR 137). No received self is sustained by him and his body becomes a site of conflict. Lyotard claims that in postmodernism the authentic self ceases to exist. The identity crisis can also be witnessed as a deconstruction taking place due to an instability specialise in the post-war years in America. The drug induced hallucinations bespeak of cannibalization of real self in a post-industrial society. Old Bull Lees wife Jane (Joan Vollmer) enjoys tuition the sort newspaper. When Sal asks her if s he is looking for jobs she replies that she was reading the want ads as they are the approximately interesting component of a newspaper. The class newspaper advertises the ads that are being produced by a system. In Postmodernist space, as Lyotard says the Denotative and normative principles fail to sustain themselves. Denotations prescribe the world whereas Prescriptions tend to change it. The classified space is a sheer mockery on the system. In the first instance, modern politics deals in Prescriptions which are based on Denotations, as Simon Malpas writes, if the not bad(predicate) of society is X, we should do Y (Malpas 5). Secondly in the totalitarian regimes as well as democracies, Prescriptions are not given down from any authority but are imbibed by people. In On the Road, Old Bull Lee and Jane scrap the Denotative and Prescriptive principles qualification every authoritative voice redundant. They thwart the system but Dean madness engulfs it altogether.In the next s pring journey a new height is embarked by Dean and Sal. They give lifts to hobos, visit pubs, and listen to jazz. It becomes visible what is common between them- the Road. By living a ragged beat life they are participating in the void of Postmodernism. The void can be discovered in their lives when they discuss their roles in the family. Deans marriages, divorces and the kids from this experience do not curtail his exuberance for life. Through the application of Lyotardian philosophy, in Dean Moriartys case one can observe the formation of a Differend. It is a concept given by Lyotard which refers to a wrong occurring at a particular moment. Differend occurs when both good and evil occur at the alike time. Sal sympathizes with Dean saying, Poor, poor Dean- the devil himself had never fallen further in idiocy, with infected thumb, surrounded by the battered suitcases of his motherless pyrexiaish life across America and back numberless times, an undone bird. (Kerouac OTR 178 ) The presence of good and evil breaks the stereotype image of hero-villain boy. Dean embodies the Differend himself. In a Differend one faces the situation where all that remains is in umpire. One is prevented from having a role in the game of justice. Language is unable to explain the event and as a consequence the victim is thrown into silence. No one approves of Deans life and he cannot utter a single word to defend himself when a friend scolds him. For LyotardThe Differend is a moment of silence, a stutter in the flow of language where the right words will not come. It marks a point of suffering where an injustice cannot find a space to make itself comprehend where an injury is silenced and becomes a wrong. Differends are a point of deviance for Lyotards exploration of the politics and philosophy of language in the Differend. (Malpas 60).The Injustice in Lyotardian sensibility manifests in the novel as Dean is blamed by his fellows for being a selfish maniac. But they cannot unde rstand that Dean Moriarty has stop role-playing. He is only following his urge to MOVE on the road. He inquires, Whats your road man?holy boy road, mad man road, rainbow road, rainbow fish road, any road. Its an anywhere road for anybody anyhow. Where body how? (Kerouac, OTR 237).The next Mexico trip of Sal and Dean is a version of apocalyptic tone of postmodern. Together Sal and Dean challenge certain language games and create their own rules. According to Lyotard language is a medium to explicate the play of language games. There are 3 features of language games as given by Lyotard. First, the language games are an tendency of contract between the players. Second rules have to be sustained. Third, every vocalization is a move of the game. The language games then decide the relationships and bonding in a society. The language game played in the void, has the ability to say the unsaid. This ability has been achieved by Dean for he is a hipster who has throw away every responsib ility. They traverse tracing the fellaheen civilization of Mexico that offers a contrast to the consumer glossiness hypocrisies. America has a sense of finite reality which is generated by the consumerist industry. Kerouacs response over against this is a reverence for residue left in Mexican culture with is depthless signifiers.Kerouacs fellaheen world is the pure primitive humanity where ecstasy can be found. This raw ecstatic force is defined as IT. This IT can be treated as a version of Lyotards Sublime. Lyotards presumption is based on the notion of understanding how postmodernist art is empowered by Sublime. It demolishes the mediocrity of general opinion and employs the power of sublimity in analyzing the limit set by the society. The cause of Sublime remains un-deciphered yet it can be conceived. Lyotardian Sublime is understood in two ways one termed by him as Modern and the other is Postmodern. One symbolizes modernist melancholia and the other is postmodernist jubilati on. Modernist sadness is overburdened with a longing for the world of stability whereas Postmodernist Sublime discovers new channels of expression. Postmodernist work breaks rules, challenges hierarchy and raises questions against hierarchy. In Kerouacs text, the IT becomes the epitome of Sublime. It is an ambiguous experience that constructs and demolishes itself. The aesthetic experience of Kant is bifurcated into the Beautiful and the Sublime. Whereas Lyotards Sublime occurs with a concurrent existence of pain and pleasure. Sublime brings rapture and horrifies at the very(prenominal) time. The pain represents modernist nostalgia and pleasure embodies postmodernist celebration. The Sublime for Sal crystallizes in Dean Moriarty. Dean has the ability to enter ecstasy through sex, drugs and music. He imparts this wisdom to Sal. vigor matters if one enters into the labyrinth of IT-the spastic power.Sal also becomes aware that Dean is the victim as much as he is a con-man. In Mexi co, Sal gets dysentery and fever and becomes unconscious for many days. Dean deserts him and leaves for New York. A simultaneous existence of dark and light elements emerges in Deans character. The absolute goodness is countered by absolute evil. In such a situation no justice can be excluded. A residue of the feeling of injustice remains. Lyotard has elaborate the concept of Justice in a heterogeneous environment. His concept in context of the novel helps in understanding the injustice done to marginalized communities. beatniks are the spokesperson of marginalized voices. They as a community include hobos, pimps, prostitutes, blacks, Hispanics, junkies and drug peddlers. Sal and Dean through their message of liberation provide justice to the down trodden victims of a Capitalist society. Based on Kants Critique of Judgment, Lyotard explains the injustice, by introducing the theory of genre of discourse. Judgment takes place when a specific genre of discourse is selected to understan d the particular state of affairs. Judgments can thus be classified into two types- Determinate judgments and Reflective judgments. Determinate judgments take place when we fit in a given idea of a particular hypothesize context. Determinate judgments are made by the bourgeoisie on the Beats. In case of reflective judgment, a strange new event occurs and a search for context is generated. Lyotard gives an analogy of an archipelago where a navigator has to find his way linking various islands. Judgment becomes the basis of sailing among the islands. Reflective judgment sustains itself in the postmodernist philosophy as there are no pre-fixed laws of attributing justice. Dean becomes the crazy Ahab who then gives direction to the crew. Beats then indulge in Reflective judgments and give a new terminology to the system. Through their emancipation they refuse to be judged by the norms of determinate judgments. Instead they pass on reflective judgments that initiate a role reversal bet ween the authoritarian and victim.The quest motif takes the heroes of the novel to various places. This technique helps Kerouac to depict the transition taking place over the whole continent. In the end one realizes that there is no escape from reality. Dean says, No more land We cant go any farther cause there aint no more land. (Kerouac, OTR 161). The road takes you back from where you started. Dean had come knocking at Sals door and their journey had begun. In the end the madman Dean comes again and leaves without Sal. Deans behavior though muted still carries a resistance. He symbolizes the Lyotardian seminal fluid of Disruption whose impact remains on Sal and at a macrocosmic level, on the generations to come. Dean comes to meet Sal in New York from San Francisco, coming louver weeks before the scheduled time. Sal has to leave him around a street receding as he has to go with another friend, but he continues to think of Dean who had come just to see him.WORKS CITEDKerouac, J ack. On the Road. Penguin, 1972.Lyotard, Jean Franoise. Le Differend Phrases in dispute. Translated by Georges Van Den Abbeele. Theory and chronicle of Literature. Vol. 46. University of Minnesota Press. 2002.. The Postmodern Tradition A Report On Knowledge. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature. Vol. 46. University of Minnesota Press. 1984.Malpas, Simon, ed. Jean Franoise Lyotard Routledge Critical Thinkers. Routledge 2003.