The scream of a generation

 

Allen Ginsberg, author of the poem ‘Howl’, is one of the founding fathers to the Beat Generation. In this counter-culture movement, the young men and women involved in it were trying to find purpose to their lives and the world. They reject that which was defined as the American standard way of life. These ‘standards’ felt dictated, and felt like they were being force on to them. Their search is of everything and anything; even and especially in things rejected by (or hidden from) the general public. They are trying to find their own ‘beat’, their own rhythm through the world. And to find this significance they are willing to transcend / experience all and every means possible. This (famously) included going into altered states through the use of drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.

I recently saw the movie ‘Killing your Darlings’ where you are given an account of how Ginsburg first gets into the beat movement and how the Beat Generation was first created by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. In certain scenes you are shown the altered states they would experience. There is a mix everything; a confusion of the real and the hallucinated. You also get a sense of the ‘conformity’ that is trying to force itself on them.

 

My first impression of Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘Howl’ is that it is intense. What the film had started showing about the things Allen Ginsberg and his friends were going through was only deepened, and made clearer in the poem. Through the poem (and helped by the film) you really get a sense of the thoughts they were having, the ideas, and experiences they had.

There is a raw quality to the poem. It exposes what is trying to be hidden, showing both the beautiful and the horrible in their experimentations. There is a constant feeling of madness, going crazy, trying to break free. Like a caged animal, Allen Ginsberg is letting out a long intense ‘howl’ at the world. He is screaming at the madness he is going through, at the oppression he and his friends feel.  However it only shows it as a collection of fractures of their experiences. These cracks demonstrate the generation’s confusion of their own lives. Moreover, while reading the poem you can perceive movement, and rhythm. Through means of alliterations and repetition, and the overall structure of the poem, you feel the ‘beat’ that Allen Ginsberg is trying to find in his own life.

Although I am not appealed by some of the methods that they use to try and find themselves, I do understand and support their struggle. It is only reasonable to try and find a sense to the world, and your existence in it. They are trying to find a voice in a world that seems odd to them- no wonder they are going to fight back. In each new generation there it is required to challenge its predecessors. It is through this challenge, this endeavour that there is evolution, and possibly a way in getting closer to some kind of meaning to why everything is.