Jerome David Salinger.

The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of "Beat" culture included rejection of received standards, innovations in style, experimentation with drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition. Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature Both Howl and Naked Lunch were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States. The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity. While many authors claim to be directly influenced by the Beats, the Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had an influence on American culture leading more broadly to the hippie movements of the 1960s.citation needed]In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of "the essential effects" of the Beat Generation: Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism. Liberation of the world from censorship. Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.

The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works. Holden is naive and at the same time resentful of the adult world. One of Holden's most striking and quintessential qualities is his powerful revulsion for "phony" qualities, a catch-all term for all the perceived hypocrisy that irritates Holden. It is this cynicism that causes him to distance himself from other people. Despite Holden's strong disdain for phony qualities, he exhibits some of the qualities that he abhors, thereby making him a somewhat tragic character. Holden is very much a character of contradiction; At six feet, two-and-a-half inches, he is tall for his age and already has some gray hair - though he himself admits that he acts more like a 13-year-old than an adult. He continually fails classes and calls himself "dumb," yet he shows intelligence through his exceptionally articulate narration. This idea in the book may be Holden's criticism of a society that is unable to acknowledge his hidden intelligence.

29. The themes and motifs in R. Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”

Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t provide a single, clear explanation of why books are banned in the future. Instead, it suggests that many different factors could combine to create this result. These factors can be broken into two groups: factors that lead to a general lack of interest in reading and factors that make people actively hostile toward books. The novel doesn’t clearly distinguish these two developments. Apparently, they simply support one another. Montag, Faber, and Beatty’s struggle revolves around the tension between knowledge and ignorance. The fireman’s duty is to destroy knowledge and promote ignorance in order to equalize the population and promote sameness. Montag’s encounters with Clarisse, the old woman, and Faber ignite in him the spark of doubt about this approach. His resultant search for knowledge destroys the unquestioning ignorance he used to share with nearly everyone else, and he battles the basic beliefs of his society. In the beginning of “The Hearth and the Salamander,” Montag’s bedroom is described first as “not empty” and then as “indeed empty,” because Mildred is physically there, but her thoughts and feelings are elsewhere. Bradbury’s repeated use of such paradoxical statements—especially that a character or thing is dead and alive or there and not there—is frequently applied to Mildred, suggesting her empty, half-alive condition. Animal and nature imagery pervades the novel. Nature is presented as a force of innocence and truth, beginning with Clarisse’s adolescent, reverent love for nature. She convinces Montag to taste the rain, and the experience changes him irrevocably. His escape from the city into the country is a revelation to him, showing him the enlightening power of unspoiled nature. Fahrenheit 451 contains a number of religious references. Mildred’s friends remind Montag of icons he once saw in a church and did not understand.

30. Anti-Utopia ir> English Literature: George Orwell's "Animal Farm" (1945) and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949), Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (1932). The concept of "free will" in Antony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" (1962).

The utopia and its offshoot, the dystopia, are genres of literature that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal society, or utopia, as the setting for a novel. Dystopian fiction (sometimes referred to as apocalyptic literature) is the opposite: creation of an utterly horrible or degraded society that is generally headed to an irreversible oblivion, or dystopia.[1] Many novels combine both, often as a metaphor for the different directions humanity can take in its choices, ending up with one of two possible futures. Both utopias and dystopias are commonly found in science fiction and other speculative fiction genres, and arguably are by definition a type of speculative fiction. More than 400 utopian works were published prior to the year 1900 in the English language alone, with more than a thousand others during the twentieth century. Modern literary utopianism emerges out of the divided heritage of the nineteenth-century socialist utopia, with its antithetical images of the future represented, in the English-speaking world, by Edward Bellamy and William Morris. Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888) portrays a scientific-industrial state of the collectivist or ‘totalitarian’ type that would be satirized in the two most influential twentieth-century anti-utopias, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The pastoral communism of Morris's News from Nowhere (1890) anticipates aspects of the ecological and feminist utopianism of the late twentieth century. Both the collectivist and the ecological utopia share a futurological orientation inherited from the tradition of scientific socialism. In A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess the theme of choosing free will is played throughout the experiences and character of Alex. Burgess shows the importance of free will as a necessity in life regardless of the dangers that may come with it. Alex chooses to decipher between good and evil before he is brainwashed. Although his choices were generally evil, they still were his free choices to make. The importance of having moral choice is what makes human beings unique. Alex becomes dehumanized once he is brainwashed and cannot make decisions for himself.

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