American Literary Classic On the Road Essays

American Literary Classic On the Road Essays American Literary Classic On the Road Essay American Literary Classic On the Road Essay Essay Topic: On the Road The Road Most peoples actions are influenced in some sort of way. American writing was influenced by Jack Kerouac. He was an American author whose most famous work came in the 1950s called, On the Road. The book is both fiction and non-fiction. It is about journeys across the country on multiple trips. His book has become the name of the beat generation. The beat generation is a group of writers in the 1950s that influenced culture in America in the post World War two era. Jack Kerouac set a new direction for American Writers. On the Road embraced much drinking, drugging, and fornicating (Robert Dean Lurie). This book had become an inspiration to many. Jack himself had been a successful person. He was as a football player, a fast, agile fullback, that he first won any kind of recognition (Joseph Lelyveld). Before he could be a football star he had to change schools. In 1939 he entered Horace Mann School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, with the promise of a football scholarship to Columbia University if he could prove himself academically (Lelyveld). He had injured his knee during his freshman year so he decided to leave Columbia university and joined the military. He served first in the merchant marine, then briefly in the Navy, from which he was discharged as a schizoid personality (Lelyveld). Then, he became a writer. Jack Kerouac was a savior to some. The hippies claim him as an inspiration, as do many western Buddhists (Lurie). Jacks book On the Road included acts of drinking alcohol, traveling, drugs, and sex. This was Jacks youth he was writing about however, he never saw the impartial documenting of his own reckless youth as license for others to drop out of society (Lurie). Many found his book hard to follow, but he refused to revise it because for he regarded revision as a form of lying (Lelyveld). He wished to capture the truth, his truth, as best and as purely as he could. And he wanted to do this