Essay on the Failure of Language in Malcolm and On the Road

The Failure of Language in Malcolm and On the alley John Clellon Holmes in his essay The Philosophy of the Beat Generation characterized his offspring contemporaries as deeply spiritual to him, the very eccentricity of the fifties with their quality sexual promiscuity, drug addiction, petty criminality, and heterodox forms of self-expression was an attempt to assert ones indistinguishability in the atmosphere of pervasive conformity of that Golden Age. And judging by the literature of this era from the distance of four decades one might leave off that incessant search for ones true self was, indeed, what this time was all about. The plastic of identity of a young protagonist (or its failure) is the dominant motif of the devil outstanding works of the period--James Purdys Malcolm and Jack Kerouacs On the Road, published in 1959 and 1957 correspondingly their central characters, Dean Moriarty and Malcolm, severed from the primal source of identity--their fathers, are on a que st to regain the touch with that most fundamental manifestation of their individuality. Defining oneself in relationship to language is an essential part of this quest. on that point is a certain magnetism about Malcolm and Dean that wins over hobos, billionaires, chanteuses, and bohemians likewise but whatever the nature of their charm might be, it is not linguistic. Indeed, twain Malcolm and Dean are at odds with standard English. Malcolms verbal ingenuousness makes him a foreigner to any circle he finds himself in the descriptor corruption in the novel, therefore, requires that his mentors introduce him to the vocabulary which stands for yet another position of the wickedness they are to break him in. This is an arduous task, given the extent to which Malcolm is a... ...y appropriated, were the heroes of the multiplication (Krupat 407). Purdys novel, on the other hand, denies his Everyman a father, humanity its God, and the world any meaning. whole caboodle cited Adam s, Stephen D. James Purdy. London Vision, 1976. Holmes, John C. The Philosophy of the Beat Generation. On the Road. schoolbook and Criticism. By Jack Kerouac. Ed. Scott Donaldson. New York Penguin, 1979. 367-79. Kerouac, Jack. On the road. Ed. Scott Donaldson. New York Penguin, 1979. Krupat, Arnold. Dean Moriarty as Saintly Hero. On the Road. Text and Criticism. By Jack Kerouac. Ed. Scott Donaldson. New York Penguin, 1979. 397-411. Lorch, doubting Thomas M. Purdys Malcolm A Unique Vision of Radical Emptiness. Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature. 6 (1965) 204-13. Purdy, James. Malcolm. London, New York Serpents Tail, 1994.