Kerouac and Barthelmes Rebellion Against Corporate America Essay

jak Kerouac and Donald Barthelmes Rebellion Against Corporate America Oh America, home of the red, white, blue, and potassium. Green as our greenest grass. Green as our forefather George on a one-dollar bill. You too tin can work your way up our market-economy stool to your own little green house. Climb the incorporate fold to provide for your wife in her little green dress. With the green beneath your feet, reach for the gold in the sky. Oh America, this mountain is rich. As many Americans eagerly began and continued their climb toward the financial stability the Sixties promised, a counterculture of writers and thinkers emerged seeking to climb their own mountains, to tell their own story of the climb the way they understand it. For Jack Kerouac, the story was The Dharma Bums, where a man discovers himself in the mountains minimalist, Buddha-like grace. Donald Barthelme borrows Americas market-economy mountain of materialism and attempts to reclaim it in his prose poem, The Glass Mountain. Through their respective mountain narratives, Kerouac and Barthelme fight a personal fight against the raging currents of corporate America. Jack Kerouacs mountain in The Dharma Bums comes to represent what Kerouac, or rather the main character Ray Smith, conceives as the ideal standard of living. During Rays climb of Matterhorn with Japhy Ryder, Ray ways at Japhy with a particularly illuminating realization, What does he care if he hasnt got any money he doesnt need money, all he needs is his rucksack with those little plastic bags of dried-out food and a good pair of shoes and off he goes to enjoy the privileges of a millionaire in surroundings like this. (Kerouac 77) Ray then resolves to beg... ...nt stories, Jack Kerouac and Donald Barthelme both participate in a personal rebellion against corporate America through their writing. Today, it is difficult to determine what the influence of their rebellion was on corporate America. We can be certain, however , that their resistance of corporate America brought them to a greater understanding of themselves and their surroundings. Not only do Kerouac and Barthelme provide an illuminating glimpse at the transformation of corporate America in the twelve years between the dates the writings were published, but they also allow us a unique look at Americas mountains through their eyes. Works Cited Barthelme, Donald. The Glass Mountain. Taking It to the Streets. Ed. Alexander Bloom. Wini Breines. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1995. Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. New York Penguin Putnam Inc., 1976.