Alienation in Beat Generation Literature
A lot of people write about alienation because they feel alienated by others. Like, that nameless narrator in Invisible Man. But most of the Beats were white guys from privileged backgrounds. What they believed in was voluntarily alienating themselves.
As in: just go. Hop a train. Get away from it all, man. They thought this kind of solitude was good for the soul, much like the American Transcendentalists, though the Beats were more urban oriented than those other beardy, woodsy white guys.
Anyways, during their solo ventures, the Beats sought personal release—by any means necessary, from illegal drugs to sex to indifference to social causes to generally "opting out" of mainstream American society.
Chew on This:
Philip Whalen was a bit of a goofball. He also had a rosier outlook on life than some of his Beat counterparts. You might say he was like the class clown of the Beat Generation. His choice comedic routine? Poetry. To him, poetry was the best way to free yourself from society. His work, Like I Say, is literature to help you laugh your way through intense loneliness. If Ginsberg howled about feeling out of place, Whalen smiled and giggled his way through the pain. Same post-war cultural malaise, different cures.
Our boy Jack Kerouac thought the best way to alienate yourself is to jump into a convertible and hit the road. He did this several times and wrote about it in On the Road, which is his most famous work. In his mind, choosing separation was the only way to transcend the control of Big Brother. Driving a car on an open road is a sort of religion to many Americans, especially of that era. Which we guess makes Kerouac The Road Religion's high priest. Excellent. He was a spiritual dude, after all…