Project 2: Ginsberg’s Howl Pt. 1

Jacob Argamaso

CULF 1318.10

Dr. Sievers

26 April 2016

Howl Part I

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl is not only a masterwork of emotional writing, but a timely piece that perfectly reflects the strife of a nation during a time where it was considered to be the most successful country in the world. While the country was moving into an era of prosperity the likes of which had not been seen before, those who were on the fringes of society were being pushed away more than every with the advent of the “Nuclear Family” being the normal thing to strive for in America. No more were we a people that experimented and questioned what life really was, but instead were entrapped within the spoils of wealth and settling for a family, a backyard and a dog. As part of The Beat Generation, Ginsberg was not okay with this, creating Howl as a cry against conformity and normalism in the country. His work quickly became a rallying cry for The Beats and showcased the irritation, frustration and anger towards the country the tried to suppress them and change them to conform to the image heavy times of the Cold War.

In the first few lines of the first section of Howl, Ginsberg refers to different people as, “who…” These people that he’s talking about are those on the outside of American society, the ones being shoved out by what the majority of the country considered to be “normal.” These people, so oppressed by the society around them, “…in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the terror through the wall,” struggle to make a living for themselves. This frustrates Ginsberg greatly because these people are expected to fit into the norms of society, yet everything is made more difficult to achieve because they started on the outside of what the American people considered to be “the right way” at the time.

However, for all the negative parts that work their way into each line, there are some positives images we can take away as well. While these people he refers to throughout the first section are disparaged and mistreated, he sees them as a beacon of hope in the darkness, the salvation for what America should be and not what it was. Referring to them as “angelheaded hipsters” and those “with radiant cool eyes,” these people, though pushed out of American society, are what would save the true American life, according to Ginsberg.

As the poem goes on, he begins to focus less and less on the people around him and instead on the place he lived: New York City. It’s great to know that he lived there and knew the area so well, but what exactly was the significance of New York and its surrounding borough’s? It was a popular meeting place for many of those involved in the “Beat Generation” including some of Ginsberg’s biggest influences, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. These men were part of this off-shoot of American society, and even though they were the “best minds of my generation,” according to Ginsberg, they were “destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.” This frustrated Ginsberg even more because he didn’t understand how a country can be so concerned with image that it goes ahead and ignores the fact that these men are brilliant and creative and have so much to say. Looking back with a modern perspective now however, it’s easy to see why the country was so concerned with the way it looked to others: The Cold War.

The Beats were an inherently non-violent group and were strongly against conflict, so The Cold War didn’t sit with them lightly at all from the get go. The Cold War was a conflict of image and who looked like the right side to those around them, and with Howl, Ginsberg denounced that and spoke out against what the American government was doing to its people. It’s also important to remember that during this time a large wave of nationalism that made people proud to be an American, and not a “stupid commie”, and denounced anyone or anything that spoke poorly about the country and our government. Ginsberg spoke out so much, in fact that in March of 1957 520 copies of his book, Howl and Other Poems, were seized and, and the publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was arrested for publishing and disseminating obscene material.

So as the government sought to censor and silence these great minds for their thoughts against America, there became a need for a safe haven for the Beat writers, and New York housed them perfectly. Ginsberg mentions the city incessantly as a place where the “best minds” have room to travel around and be free from the entrapments of American society and the oppression to conform. From the “Holy Bronx…” to the “…drear light of Zoo,” this was a safe place for them with plenty of inspiration to be found. It’s a natural fit for them, a place that allows them to be who they are without questioning what they’re doing.

Another common theme used by Ginsberg are his allusions to drug use and the effects they have on others as well as himself. Many, if not all, of the Beats used some sort of drug to either keep them sane or focused on what they wanted to write at the time. Ginsberg’s drug of choice as Benzedrine, a drug that was easily available as a cold remedy, but used widely by Beat writers as a way of helping them keep a stream of consciousness going, referred to in Howl by saying, “…talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar…” It allowed for continued focus for them regardless of the setting around them. However, while it was great for them to get some writing done, it also had the downside of causing abnormal behavior and self harm. Ginsberg talks about his struggles with the drug as well, by saying “yacketyyakking screaming vomiting whispering facts…” and “…Eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars.”

Being a Beat writer was all about being free and separating yourself from the society around you, and the drug use that Ginsberg refers to was one of the ways they used to differentiate from the rest. Marijuana being the chief drug amongst most of the beats, as it contributed to the experience of being a Beat as well as the way they wrote and expressed themselves. While highly illegal at the time, the significance of the Beat generation is owed to their exploitation of drugs because it allowed them to open up to a new world in front of them. With these substances in their systems, they were able to fully express and separate themselves from the mundane and settled people around them. Certain perspectives can only be reached in certain ways, and their massive drug use gave them that window to a new outlook on life and the world around them. However, it’s also worth noting that many of these Beat writers died young, so while these illicit materials gave them a new view on the world, it came at the highest price a person can pay: their lives.

One of the arguments at the time of its banning was that there was no point in keeping it around because the piece wouldn’t carry a lasting impact as the years went by, but the facts have proved that line of thought to be anything but true. Ginsberg portrays an emotional confusion the likes of which is not easy to replicate, and in a time where Donald Trump leads the pack on one side to the presidency, it preserves the frustrations that every day Americans feel when it seems as though they’re being shut out of the equation. From the inception of America it has been the story of a disparaged people rising up and overtaking an overreaching government or group of people, and Howl acts as well as a rallying call for the masses to wake up and take back the country that was rightly there from the beginning. Without Howl as well, the Beat generation wouldn’t have had as profound an impact as it had without the publicity that the banning of Howl case had on the American public eye.

Over time, Howl has become less of a literary work and more of a reminder of the times in which the piece was published. A show of frustration, anger and disgust towards a society that rejects those with a creative mind rather than the ones who’s only ambition is to settle for the bare minimum in life. It’s a manifesto for those who’ve just had enough of the mundane and the push back from the world on being themselves. Individuality has been such a common theme in the success and cultivation of our nation, and Ginsberg wanted to go back to that. With Howl he set into motion that ambition, and left the world something we’ll never forget about as long as we wish to succeed as a nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

  1. Ginsberg, Allen, Barry Miles, and Carl Solomon. Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author, with Contemporaneous Correspondence, Account of First Public Reading, Legal Skirmishes, Precursor Texts & Bibliography. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Print.
  2. “Howl – Poetry Foundation.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 1955. Web. 03 May 2016.
  3. “A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets.” org. Academy of American Poets, 3 May 2004. Web. 03 May 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

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