Big Sur

Introduction

Big Sur is a novel written by Jack Kerouac, a writer from beat generation. He found himself sick and was facing delirium tremens caused by withdrawal from alcohol. The novel was published in 1962. In this novel he wrote the details of events from the dark period of his life. In Big Sur, Jack focused on August and September of 1960, in which he describes about his time in San Francisco and in the woods of Big Sur, at California along with his Beat writer friend Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Thesis Statement: The consequences of fame can be susceptible for some.

Beat Generation

Beat Generation was a group of writers in United States of America belonging to different nationalities in 1950's. They rejected conservative society values and believed on the writing which based on the individual experiences. They introduced new culture, culture of freedom in which they included experimentation with drugs, sexuality, rejection of materialism, and the idealizing of enthusiastic, unenthusiastic means of expression and being.

The term 'Beat Generation' was coined by Jack Kerouac. He was the leader and the spokesperson for Beat Generation. The group rejected academic poetry and adopted freedom. Liberation from the things which are traditional in society like gay liberation, women and black liberation etc. Surrealism was also the part of their writings that is a lot of Beat Generation writers were influenced greatly by Surrealists and existentialism.

Discussion

In Big Sur, Jack described about the dilemma he faced in his life. The quantity of the burden that fame brought could not be handled by him. By 1961, he was aware of the problems he had, the damage to his psychic. The dilemma of Big Spur is that the character Jack Duluoz which is the fiction name of writer himself was caught in Alcoholism, depression, delirium tremens, nightmares, confusion, guilt. This was ...