The existence of the “Beat Generation” was an inevitable outcome of the politics, history, and society of America after World War II. After that, due to the contradiction between the abundant material life and the lack of traditional belief, the lost feeling of young people from the USA and the growing sense of social responsibility formed a fierce collision. Therefore, those young people began to integrate with this contradiction, and eventually formed a cultural phenomenon, the most representative of the time.
Amiri Baraka, a revolutionary poet fights for black people’ rights, defines the “Beat Generation” as “a whole bunch of people, of all different nationalities, who came to the conclusion that society sucked.” Members of the "Beat Generation" were mostly unconventional and uninhibited young people, who believed in liberty and hold a strong anti-attitude towards hegemony and power politics of the government. “Beat” writes express their dissatisfaction toward society status, rejection of received standards and longing for freedom as well as the truth, by both their works and extreme life style. Bibulosity, drug taking, promiscuity, theft, vagrancy… are distinct labels for “Beats”.
The “Beat Generation” is one of the most important genres in American literature history and they had left plentiful literary legacies. In addition, its profound influence is not just confined to literature, but also political, historical, and some other cultural aspects. There are the other two generations “Beatniks” and “Hippies” following, inherit and develop the Beat spirit in more deviant ways. In music, it had a pervasive influence on rock and roll and popular music. Some famous singers and bands like Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and the Beatles had been affected a lot by this trend.
The point distinguishes the Beat Generation from the Lost Generation is that the Beats are not people lost in life but a group of young people searching for answers to all of life's questions confusing them. Until today, the “Beat Generation” is still affecting countless people all around the world. The “beat” spirit still shines upon today’s new generation, which is living in a changing rapidly world, facing various stress from all sides of reality.
2. The core character – Dean Moriarty
2.1 Who is Dean Moriarty
There is no doubt that Dean Moriarty is one of the most important persons in On the Road, he affects almost all of other characters’ lives and emotions in the book. Almost everyone in the story made a radically different evaluation towards him, but they seem to know Dean from just a one-sided angle. As a matter of fact, Dean is the main clue of plots for story development. It is justifiably to regard him as the soul of the whole novel.
The archetypal image of Dean Moriarty comes from Neal Cassady, a friend of Kerouac’s and a major figure of the Beats group. Neal Cassady has a strong influence among “the Beat Generation”. He serves as a models of some main characters in a lot of beat writers’ works, such as, "Cody Pomeray" in many of Kerouac's other novels, the main character of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, "N.C., secret hero of these poems" in Allen Ginsberg’s long poem Howl. Thus it can be seen that this person possess extraordinary personal charm. Just as what Kerouac describes in the book about Dean Moriarty, Cassady lived a crazy life which may not be accepted by common people. He was portrayed by Kerouac as a typical character in the nature of cultural representation: wildly addicted, penniless, often defy traditional morality, but madly in love with life.
With similar background, personality and experience, Dean Moriarty is a dye-in-the-wood portrayal of Neal Cassady. Differing from some other main characters in the novel, Dean gets less formal education in his whole life, but he read a lot of books, with interest in learning, agile thought, decisive action force, leadership and other talents, he is the star in the group. His mother died early in his childhood, and his father is an alcoholic hobo who abandoned the family when Dean was a kid; Dean searches for him for many years, but has no gain. He learns to steal cars when he was a teenage, and spends his youth in and out of juvenile detention centers. “垮掉的一代”杰克•凯鲁亚克《在路上》英语论文(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_446.html