Krótki przewodnik po Stanach Zjednoczonych stworzony w oparciu o powieść Jacka Kerouaca W drodze

Abstract

"We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move. And we moved!" ; wrote Jack Kerouac in his novel On the Road. He was one of the most popular representatives of the Beat Generation, a literary movement that operated in the United States after World War II. The novel On the Road became the manifesto of a generation, as well as one of the literary foundations of the 1960s counter-cultural revolution. It is also a staple of the road novel genre. There are three reasons why it deserves particular attention. First of all, it constitutes the manifesto of a generation that dared to rebel against the social order and the attitudes prevailing in American society in the post-war years. Second of all, it was written in an unconventional way, and follows an unconventional style - Kerouac's own, which he dubbed "Spontaneous Bop Prosody". And finally, it depicts a journey during which the protagonists travel several times (by hitchhiking, on a bus, in a car) along the East-West route and back again, across numerous states, cities and towns. When the novel was released in 1 957, many young Americans set off on a similar trip with Kerouac's work in their backpack. The aim of the paper will be to create what we could cali a guide to Kerouac's America; it would formally meet the criteria of an actual guide (where? what? how?), yet would focus on presenting the ideology of the Beat movement, of which traveling was an effective application, and from which future generations could draw inspiration.