4. 1. 3 Delinquency and violence On the Road
From the moment when the Beat Generation was born even to today, juvenile delinquency is still a headache in American society, for which the Beats can never escape from blame. They resort to delinquency to defy the hypocritical government and systems, in which policemen are called “pigs” as Beats hate them so much. They damn everyone them are hatred of, steal, rob, fight and even indulge themselves in everything that may satisfies their desire to destroy the present systems which they detest a lot. Without question, such attitudes and behavior filter through On the Road. Old Bull Lee bears special grudge to “cops” and Sal complains the police only act as the tool of the American government to control people. It is inevitable that on their four journeys back and forth across America, they encounter the police many times. Undoubtedly, the police should make arrests when these travelers fight, steal and rob. But it is ironic that the police “wanted to make arrests and get compliments from the chief of police in town. They even said that if you didn’t make at least one a month you’d be fired.” [8] In Beats eyes, delinquency may act as a weapon against the dehumanized society and to rebel the existing institution. But it is really a negative and destructive way. And its devastation is especially outstanding when young people resort to violence, because delinquency, together with violence, destroys the stability and security of the society and perhaps will become an obstacle for the development of the youth and even the whole society since adolescents is a weak group in society. In spite of these, all the violence and delinquency reflect the darkness of society that Beats, representatives of the whole country, strongly dissatisfies with. In On the Road, the police, who should to be civil servant in America, just “desperately want to make arrests” [8] and they “were itching to shoot somebody.” [8] The elements can explain that a delinquency is not avoidable under these terrible circumstances. And from Remi’s, a hardened thief’s word and deeds, we can easily detect the resentment and irony. Remi enjoys theft because he has been deprived of too much in his childhood and “He was out to get back everything he’d lost; there was no end to his loss; this thing would drag on forever.” [8] He even quotes Present Truman’s words to excuse his behavior: “Paradise, I have told you several times that President Truman said, we must cut down on the cost of living.” [8] From all of these, it can be clearly found that Beats strongly dissatisfy with the government and the cold, unjust social reality.
4. 1. 4 Addiction to drugs in On the Road
Beats’ another special experience is addiction to drugs. Beats, trying to find out a way out from the opposite direction of bourgeois values to rebel against the stifling society, becomes the first group taking drug occasionally. The major drug is marijuana, Benzedrine, amphetamine and morphine. In the cold society, they believe that only drugs that are able to lull them from danger and assist as a shortcut to a paradise now. Step by step, drugs seem to be indispensable to the Beats. The effect of drugs appears to trigger a release that slips the leash of the normal, rational and waking mind as well as to help them to fulfill their dream to be different from the mainstream society. And their curiosity drives them to defy prohibitions and taste new things to pursuit excitement. This is anther reason why they take drugs. And Beat writers also take drugs when they are composing what they have seen and heard as they can enter an ecstatic state. They also write their own experiences of drugs in works. Kerouac records it in On the Road. In the novel, in San Francisco, almost everyone is addicted to drug. Here is the end of this land. None prohibit you. Kerouac describes the changes of people after taking marijuana through Dean.
“The first day I lay rigid as a board in bed and couldn’t move or say a word; I just looked straight up with my eyes open wide. I could hear buzzing in my head and saw all kinds of wonderful Technicolor visions and felt wonderful. The second day everything came to me, everything I’d even done or known or read or heard of or conjectured came to me and rearranged itself in my mind in a brand-new logical way and because I could think of nothing else in the interior concerns of holding and catering to the amazement and gratitude I felt, I kept saying, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’ Not loud. ‘Yes,’ real quiet, and these green tea visions lasted until the third day. I had understood everything by then, my life was decided, I knew I loved Marylou, I knew I had to fir my father wherever he is and save him, I knew you were buddy et cetera, I knew how great Carlo is. I knew a thousand things about everybody everywhere. Then the third day began having a terrible series of waking nightmares, and they were so absolutely horrible and grisly and green that I lay there doubled up with my hands around my knees, saying, ‘Oh, oh, oh, ah, oh . . .’”[8]转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net
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