Name- Dr. Ashima Bhardwaj
Designation- Fulbright Postdoctoral Researcher Fellow (2016-2018)
Institute- Naropa School, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Abstract: Jack Kerouac was an writer of the iconic content material On the highway that gave birth to the Beat Generation in the us. He was the spokesperson of this cult movement who also bugled the advancement of Postmodernity in America much before than the claimed Euro-centric origins of the activity. The purpose of the paper is to critique On the Road using the critical equipment of Jean Franoise Lyotard, a thinker of the past due 20th century. The clearness of his thoughts helped to specify the postmodernist tendencies widespread in the works of Kerouac. The written text showcases that postmodernism did not emerge in the imaginative or social arenas of Western european Sixties but was something of much prior North american Post-war transitional years. His work remains an epilogue to Modernism and a prologue to Postmodernism. The newspaper would contend that the American Postmodernist in literature begins with Combat writings.
Keywords- Postmodernism, Do better than activity, Paralogy, Metanarrative, Grand narrative, Differend, Sublime.
Postmodernism is a decisive instrument in the tool container of critical theory. Much before the coinage of the term 'Postmodernism' in the criticism terminology, the Defeat writer Jack port Kerouac got bugled its advent by denouncing the rigid societal set ups in his writing style, narration and even in the way he resided. The paper would scrutinize the text of On the highway from the perspective of Jean Franoise Lyotard's critical platform. Lyotard's philosophy highlights the postmodernist tendencies that have been an innate part of Kerouac's repertoire. Lyotardian principles would be extremely relevant in interpreting the transitional Post-war stage in America. Along the way the contribution of On the Road in building postmodernity in America would become noticeable. Kerouac's seminal focus on the Road was a stimulus to the tremors of arriving postmodernity in the us much before the European boasts of the movement's inheritance. The novel transformed the American literary surroundings and a Beat Generation increased its mind from the sinister alleys, crowning Jack port Kerouac- the King of Beatniks.
Kerouac's works and life depicts an advancement of Postmodernism much before it is recorded in the European criticism. The Postmodernism as a trend was common in 1940's in America instead of the claimed decade of 1960's in European countries. Jack Kerouac's lifestyle and the body of his works bespeak of the transitional period where postmodernity started to emerge. The literary notoriety gained by Kerouac, the hyped image of him as the trendiest fashion icon by advertising and his being truly a writer to be famous will be the effects of the postmodernist tremors in womb. Kerouac's work On the Road performs an important role in giving birth to Postmodernism. Kerouac has alluded to the changing era along with his stylistic discovery, acuity and originality.
Postmodernism, as a term, has its own paradox. The term 'post' identifies an aftermath as well as it offers the sense to be constructed on the base of Modernism. In Lyotard's work The Postmodern Condition: A WRITTEN REPORT on Knowledge, he differentiates between modernist and postmodernist art. He argues that the skill forms of these periods combine Sublime and also communicate the inexpressible. Lyotard areas that the modernist skill reduces the enormity of a meeting to a recognizable form. However the postmodern work by contrast presents the un-presentable in display itself and in the process denies the task to have a recognizable form. Postmodernist art refuses to be included by the accepted notions of art forms. With this vein, Kerouac has called his novel On the Road an 'Epos'- dropping outside the explanation of an epic. Kerouac's writing style was the first great shock to the accepted means of reserve writing. The first version of On the highway was written in record twenty times, solo spaced paragraph of 175, 000 words, typed on a 120 ft. long taped paper scroll. It is said that Kerouac had taken the scroll to Robert Giroux, the editor of Harcourt Brace and rolled it out. But Giroux asked him how he could print that. Books cannot be afforded to look like it. This novel became a story.
Kerouac was aware of the repercussions as he had given a speech to the silenced and the marginalized communities in the task. He had destabilized the hierarchical standards. Hereby compatibility can be viewed with Lyotards's Postmodernism. For Lyotard, Postmodernism is not a chronologically demarcated period. It really is a response to a changing culture. Lyotard's notion of Postmodernism, stresses on the necessity of knowing the failings in a system and resisting the dominating modes in practice. Kerouac's work provides center stage to the marginalized varieties that form the very crux of Do better than life. The novel identifies a trans-racial, transgendered countercultural backdrop. It identifies those changes which surfaced up in the post-war technology. America was the only country to emerge as a respected power from the ashes of the World Wars. The Eisenhower era used the dictum of least interference. Their state absolved from a dynamic participation in the lives of the individuals. The stableness so achieved was temporal as insecurities were depicted in maniacal car journeys by the heroes of Kerouac's work. In Lyotardian terminology it could be seen as breaking of your grand narrative.
Lyotard's notion when applied to the book magnified the areas depicting heterogeneity. Within the novel On the Road, Sal Heaven (Jack Kerouac) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) quest across America and towards the end they undertake a vacation to Mexico. The journeys of both heroes emphasized on the multi-perspectives of enjoying a country and strengthened the notions of believing in the need of difference. The novel firmly rejected the defining narratives. In Lyotard's sensibility, the Metanarratives fail in a postmodern world. Within the post- industrial modern culture, the grand narratives of Speculation and Flexibility also collapse. Lyotard asserted that no effort should be made to get pregnant a universalizing narrative. This breaking of narratives was essential. It provided space to the multitudes of testimonies that were subdued earlier by the Metanarrative. The two American Beats are in the search of 'IT' which really is a fathomless ecstasy. They may be poor and beaten down but the religious search in their conscious minds elevates them. They gain beato- the beatific lifestyle in their trip. Sal and Dean's companionship saw many pros and cons but it was always the road which joined up with them. Kerouac's text message is the prophetic roadmap charting a search for life in the fellaheen world resting on the verge of the consumerist european civilization. The book comes with an inbuilt trend of non-conformism. The heroes have offered level of resistance in their own way. They use drugs so you can get ecstatic experience. Sex becomes a powerful tool to shatter the traditional ways of considering. The non-conformism exhibited by the personas synchronizes with the concepts of Lyotard. His postmodernism entails an interrogation of the hegemonic structures placed by the society.
The journey taken by Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) becomes a kaleidoscopic seek out life. Sal undertakes the voyage to flee the monotonous life and to overcome unhappiness from a failed relationship and health problems. He calls for four trips along with other beat figures across America. Hitch- hiking on his path, he wants to attain the Promised Land of Denver. On his vehicle ride he becomes alert to multiple narratives which go in to the making of the nation. He receives a cultural surprise in a 'Wild West Week' celebration. With this event a simulacra of the pristine Tx glory is established. People imitate Texan life in cowboy hats and boots. This simulation is very far way from reality. Sal's stay at Chad King's house in Denver reveals the drawback of increasing capitalism. Chad's daddy had invented a spot remover that was now copied by a large firm. While Chad's family lived in poverty, the business was soaring saturated in profits. Capitalism acquired made people subservient to its demands. In the name of progress, Lyotard says that system becomes a 'vanguard machine' which is dragging mankind and de-humanizing it. Folks are hegemonized by totalitarian discourses, grand narratives and metanarratives.
Kerouac shows the way the upcoming Postmodernity can be an incredulity displayed towards such metanarratives. You will find two types of grand-narratives- the narrative of emancipation and speculative grand narrative. In the grand narrative of emancipation, knowledge becomes a liberating power. Kerouac thus attempts to provide an antidote to metanarrative and grand narrative constructions of success under the garb of Capitalism. The speculative grand narrative ends in a realization of the state of non-progress. Similarly Postmodernist void becomes prominent as in the Wild West Week, and so the grand narrative of emancipation breathes its last. Sal Heaven also declares that he can feel the world collapsing around him. He has realized the raggedness of America and therefore the idealistic visions start evaporating.
Sal fits Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg) in Denver. Carlo makes him realize through his poems that terms itself has a linear progression and dreams are a mosaic of the figments of imagination. Sal witnesses the disintegration of misconceptions thus upholding the advancement of postmodernity. In LA he complies with a Mexican lady, Terry. They have sex and she says him to trust in manana: tomorrow things would be better. Kerouac makes his protagonist have the presence of the Gray myth of the West and dark misconception of the East. Death becomes the best truth that Sal is fearful of. Here you can visit a parallel of Kerouac's values and Lyotard's beliefs. Lyotard's Postmodernism is differentiated from Modernism as it exhibits a celebration instead of fear. This fear sees a vent in the make-up of Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) for he's a performer who is not afraid of anything- not even death. Sal views that Dean was mad in his moves that included:
a shaking of the top, up and down, sideways; jerky, strenuous hands; quick walking, relaxing, crossing the legs, uncrossing, waking up, rubbing the hands, massaging his take a flight, hitching his pant, looking upand rapid slitting of the sight to see everywhere you go (Kerouac, On the highway 110)
Dean in his madness embodies the Lyotardian concept of Paralogy. Lyotard argues that in modern knowledge the new discoveries that take place open up new language games. They defy the prevailing norms thus changing our previous views. Paralogy- the fase reasoning has the potential to revert the prevailing understanding of the entire world. In the book, Dean becomes the fountainhead of vitality that destabilizes reasoning. In Postmodern transitions, Paralogy of Dean really helps to from new terms games nullifying every other format. Postmodernism is not then an utterly hopeless time where anything should go, rather this can be a continuum where amount of resistance has to take beginning. The pinnacle of Dean's game titles is come to where he asks Sal to make want to his lover Marylou to be able to observe how she makes like to another man. Making love here becomes a beatific experience where, "three children of the earth try(ing) to choose something in the night and having all the weight of earlier centuries ballooning at night before them. " (Kerouac, OTR 125). At one point Sal justifies Deans' fulfillment of physical love. For him it becomes a medium to relish physical feeling of the foundation of life bliss, and a way of time for innocence. For Sal, love becomes a refuge. Past due in their voyage, Dean shows the best way to put off every burden. He convinces Sal and Marylou to strip and run wild celebrating their presence.
Sal and Dean visit Old Bull Lee (William Burroughs). They take drugs which turn into a mode to enter ecstasy. Old Bull Lee's medication intake has led him to an awareness of seven personalities within him, "each growing worse and worse. The most notable personality was an English Lord, underneath an idiot. Halfway he was a vintage negro" (Kerouac, OTR 137). No authentic self is sustained by him and his body becomes a site of discord. Lyotard claims that in postmodernism the genuine do it yourself ceases to can be found. The identity problems can also be observed as a deconstruction taking place due for an instability set in the post-war years in the us. The medicine induced hallucinations bespeak of 'cannibalization' of real home in a post-industrial contemporary society. Old Bull Lee's partner Jane (Joan Vollmer) likes reading the categorised publication. When Sal asks her if she is looking for careers she replies that she was reading the want advertisements as they are the most interesting component of a publication. The classified papers advertises the advertisings that are being produced by something. In Postmodernist space, as Lyotard says the Denotative and Prescriptive ideas fail to support themselves. Denotations prescribe the earth whereas Prescriptions have a tendency to change it. The classified space is a absolute mockery on the system. In the first instance, modern politics deals in Prescriptions which derive from Denotations, as Simon Malpas creates, "if the nice of culture is X, we should do Y" (Malpas 5). Subsequently in the Totalitarian regimes as well as democracies, Prescriptions are not given down from any power but are imbibed by people. In On the Road, Old Bull Lee and Jane concern the Denotative and Prescriptive concepts making every authoritative tone of voice redundant. They thwart the machine but Dean' madness engulfs it altogether.
In the next spring journey a fresh elevation is embarked by Dean and Sal. They give elevates to hobos, visit pubs, and pay attention to jazz. It becomes noticeable what's common between them- the street. By living a ragged master life they are simply taking part in the void of Postmodernism. The void can be learned in their lives when they discuss their tasks in the family. Dean's marriages, divorces and the kids from this experience do not curtail his exuberance forever. Through the application of Lyotardian beliefs, in Dean Moriarty's circumstance one can observe the formation of the 'Differend'. It really is a concept distributed by Lyotard which identifies a wrong occurring at a particular moment. Differend occurs when both good and evil occur at the same time. Sal sympathizes with Dean stating, " While, poor Dean- the devil himself got never fallen further; in idiocy, with afflicted thumb, ornamented by the battered suitcases of his motherless feverish life across America and again numberless times, an undone bird. " (Kerouac OTR 178 ) The existence of good and wicked breaks the stereotype image of hero-villain boy. Dean embodies the Differend himself. In a Differend one encounters the situation where everything remains is injustice. Is prevented from having a job in the overall game of justice. Vocabulary struggles to explain the event and as a consequence the sufferer is thrown into 'silence'. No-one approves of Dean's life and he cannot utter an individual word to guard himself when a friend scolds him. For Lyotard:
The Differend is a moment of silence, a stutter in the move of language where in fact the right words will not come. It represents a point of battling where an injustice cannot find a space to make itself been told where an injury is silenced and becomes a 'wrong'. Differends are a spot of departure for Lyotard's exploration of the politics and school of thought of vocabulary in the Differend. (Malpas 60).
The Injustice in Lyotardian sensibility manifests in the novel as Dean is blamed by his fellows to be a selfish maniac. However they cannot recognize that Dean Moriarty has stopped role-playing. He is only following his craving to MOVE on the highway. He inquires, "What's your road man?holy youngster road, mad man street, rainbow road, guppy road, any street. It's an everywhere road for those who anyhow. Where body how?" (Kerouac, OTR 237).
The next Mexico trip of Sal and Dean is a version of apocalyptic firmness of postmodern. Jointly Sal and Dean task certain language video games and create their own rules. According to Lyotard terms is a medium to explicate the play of language games. You will find three features of language game titles as given by Lyotard. First, the dialect video games are an subject of contract between your players. Second guidelines need to be sustained. Third, every utterance is a move of the overall game. The language games then determine the interactions and bonding in a modern culture. The terminology game performed in the void, has the ability to say the unsaid. This capacity has been achieved by Dean for he's a hipster that has forgotten every responsibility. They traverse tracing the fellaheen civilization of Mexico that offers a compare to the consumer culture hypocrisies. America has a sense of finite reality which is generated by the consumerist industry. Kerouac's response from this is a reverence for residue still left in Mexican culture with is depthless signifiers.
Kerouac's fellaheen world is the real primitive mankind where ecstasy are available. This raw ecstatic power is thought as "IT". This "IT" can be cured as a version of Lyotard's Sublime. Lyotard's presumption is based on the notion of focusing on how postmodernist artwork is empowered by Sublime. It demolishes the mediocrity of standard opinion and utilizes the energy of sublimity in inspecting the limit arranged by the world. The cause of Sublime remains un-deciphered yet it can be conceived. Lyotardian Sublime is grasped in two ways: one termed by him as Modern and the other is Postmodern. One symbolizes modernist melancholia and the other is postmodernist jubilation. Modernist sadness is burdened with a longing for the world of balance whereas Postmodernist Sublime discovers new stations of manifestation. Postmodernist work breaks guidelines, issues hierarchy and raises questions against hierarchy. In Kerouac's text, the "IT" becomes the epitome of Sublime. It is an ambiguous experience that constructs and demolishes itself. The aesthetic connection with Kant is bifurcated in to the Beautiful and the Sublime. Whereas Lyotard's Sublime occurs with a simultaneous life of pain and pleasure. Sublime brings rapture and horrifies at the same time. The pain symbolizes modernist nostalgia and pleasure embodies postmodernist special event. The Sublime for Sal crystallizes in Dean Moriarty. Dean has the ability to get into ecstasy through gender, drugs and music. He imparts this knowledge to Sal. Nothing at all matters if one gets into into the labyrinth of "IT"-the spastic ability.
Sal also becomes aware that Dean is the sufferer around he is a con-man. In Mexico, Sal gets dysentery and fever and becomes unconscious for many times. Dean deserts him and leaves for NY. A simultaneous existence of dark and light elements emerges in Dean's personality. The overall goodness is countered by utter evil. In such a situation no justice can be excluded. A residue of the sensation of injustice remains. Lyotard has elaborated the idea of 'Justice' in a heterogeneous environment. His theory in context of the book assists with understanding the injustice done to marginalized neighborhoods. Beats are the spokesperson of marginalized voices. They as a community include hobos, pimps, prostitutes, blacks, Hispanics, junkies and medication peddlers. Sal and Dean through their meaning of liberation provide justice to the down trodden patients of any Capitalist society. Predicated on Kant's Critique of Wisdom, Lyotard explains the injustice, by producing the theory of genre of discourse. Common sense takes place whenever a specific genre of discourse is chosen to understand the specific situation. Judgments can thus be grouped into two types- Determinate judgments and Reflective judgments. Determinate judgments take place when we fit in a given notion of a particular designed framework. Determinate judgments are created by the bourgeoisie on the Beats. In case there is reflective wisdom, a odd new event occurs and a seek out context is produced. Lyotard provides an analogy of archipelago where a navigator must find his way linking various islands. View becomes the foundation of sailing among the hawaiian islands. Reflective wisdom sustains itself in the postmodernist viewpoint as there are no pre-fixed laws and regulations of attributing justice. Dean becomes the 'crazy Ahab' who then offers way to the staff. Beats then indulge in Reflective judgments and present a new terminology to the machine. Through their independence they won't be judged by the norms of determinate judgments. Instead they spread reflective judgments that initiate a job reversal between the dictator and sufferer.
The pursuit motif takes the heroes of the book to various places. This system helps Kerouac to depict the changeover occurring over the whole continent. In the long run one realizes that there surely is no break free from reality. Dean says, "Forget about land! We can't go any farther 'cause there ain't forget about land. " (Kerouac, OTR 161). The road takes you back from where you started out. Dean experienced come knocking at Sal's door and their trip had begun. In the end the 'madman' Dean comes again and leaves without Sal. Dean's patterns though muted still carries a level of resistance. He symbolizes the Lyotardian 'Seed 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, approaching five weeks before the planned time. Sal has to leave him around a street part as he must go with another good friend, but he goes on to think of Dean who experienced come merely to see him.
WORKS CITED
Kerouac, Jack. On the highway. Penguin, 1972.
Lyotard, Jean Franoise. Le Differend: Phrases in dispute. Translated by Georges Truck Den Abbeele. Theory and Record of Books. Vol. 46. University of Minnesota Press. 2002.
---. The Postmodern Custom: A Report On Knowledge. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and Background of Literature. Vol. 46. University or college of Minnesota Press. 1984.
Malpas, Simon, ed. Jean Franoise Lyotard: Routledge Critical Thinkers. Routledge 2003.
