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THE THEME OF SUFFERING IN • THE NOVELS OF JACK KEROUAC , LEONARD COHEN, AND WILLIAM BURROUGHS by JEAN MARIE CLIFFORD B.A., University of British Columbia, 1968 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of. English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 1970 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of {g'-v^&iAh The University of British Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada Date <_c_X. ±\ 1*1 70 ABSTRACT This thesis considers the theme of suffering and its reso• lution in the novels of Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, and William Burroughs, three avant-garde contemporary'' writers. It discusses most of their work in a general way, with reference to the theme of suffering; and it also analyses in a much more detailed man• ner The Subterraneans by Kerouac, The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers by Cohen, and Naked Lunch by Burroughs. Cohen envisions man as a suffering being who experiences his pain in many different ways. He criticizes the old ritual patterns in which suffering once took its form - the pattern of religion which teaches man that suffering is good, and. History which teaches that the cycle of civilization operates only in terms of the torturer and his victim. He rejects, too, the contemporary form of pop art which ignores the fact that suffering is a very real and overwhelming part of man. Having lost the old ritual patterns of suffering, man feels alienated from his own personal pain. Through the magic of good art, Cohen feels, man can regain entrance to his own being, for by experiencing another's suffering in art, he can regain his own awareness of suffering. If we misinterpret or misuse our own pain, we become one of Cohen's 'losers,' for we lose the core of our being to false ritual. Cohen believes the ancient notion that suffering deepens character, and he argues that man, through an understanding of his own pain, becomes a richer and better person, more capable of recognizing the magic which exists along with pain. For magic does exist with pain, and in art we gain a momentary entrance into this world of magic. Through the investigation of self and the uniqueness of self, man comes to recognize the uniqueness and magic of all. The artist takes on the role of prophet visionary showing all men that "magic.is afoot." Jack Kerouac suffered a different form of pain - a pain which originated in his desperate search for innocence. His Catholic heritage taught him that the world of mind and spirit could see God., while the physical body was the realm of the sinful and guilty. His life became a quest in search of an innocence in which man could, transcend his guilt and shame and become beatific. Kerouac named the entire beat generation beatific;,- but he could not evade his feeling of guilt and shame within his own life, and he fluctuated throughout life between ecstatic idealism and hopeless despair. His strong mother fixation was a major cause for the split between his sense of idealism and the life of the physical body - and his mother became associated in his mind with those aspects of conscious• ness he considered 'ideal.' Yet Kerouac also longed for freedom and individuality, realms of experience outside his mother's hold. He expressed his life within his art, showing his ten• sion and anguish from the pull of these two forms of experience. Kerouac's final interpretation of suffering paralleled the Catholic vision, for art became, in his life, a means of per• sonal confession and penance. William Burroughs' despair is expressed through fear and. rage, and a figurative comparison with 'paranoia' defines the range of his suffering fairly closely. Burroughs fears perse- -.-li• eu-ion from society which controls man through his need, fearing especially the implosive and depersonalizing forces of society which threaten to degrade and annihilate man. Man's own body takes part in this social degradation, for it is man's body which succumbs to addictive need. Burroughs strives to pre• serve his sense of inner reality and freedom at all costs. He purges his own personal sense of fear through his art, and art becomes, in his use of it, a social act of exorcism. He shouts the unspeakable and becomes' a priest in a cultural purification rite; he shows the absurdity of man's reality in the form of comedy and dream and these become the source of his release. He defends himself against social control by his ability to exaggerate the power of society to the point of the grotesque, and art becomes the written form of his protest. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ABSTRACT . i - iii TABLE OF CONTENTS V . iv DEDICATION , v INTRODUCTION .. 1-7 CHAPTER I - STYLE'"' 8-21). CHAPTER II -KEROUAC: Suffering Unresolved .... 2^-63 CHAPTER III - COHEN: The Magic of Art 6J+ - 101 CHAPTER IV - BURROUGHS: Humourous Exorcism . 102 - 137 CONCLUSION . 138 - llil BIBLIOGRAPHY . .v . ....... llj.2 - llil BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ' ""Footnotes are included at the end of each chapter. INTRODUCTION In the late 50's and early 60's two writers from the avant- garde scene, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, gained a momentary national prominence with their novels, On The Road. (1955) and The Subterraneans (1958) by Kerouac, and Naked. Lunch (1959) by Burroughs. Seven years later, a Montreal poet, Leonard Cohen, made the best seller list with his novel Beautiful Losers (1966). Each of these novels created a critical stir, aggravating many literary specialists because of their "carefree" style, '.Jnaphaaard" structure, "coarse" language, and "indeterminate" aim. The public was also divided in opinion about these novels. To a generation of mothers who had hidden Lady Chatterly's Lover in the bottom of their closets in order to protect their child• ren, Naked Lunch and Beautiful Losers were gross and unfit to read - as well as incomprehensible. On The Road and The Subter• raneanst written in a more standard form of English, with only slight suggestions of homosexuality, were .viewed less harshly, though Kerouac himself, innovator of the new beat culture, was at first a suspicious figure. A new generation of young people, however, those who were aware of the avant-garde scene, were attracted to and delighted by the novels - they understood them, liked them, and accepted them as a part of their contemporary view of life. One of the most revealing facts about these authors and their novels is this striking division of opinion about them - most readers are either for or against them - few are impartial. The opinions not only of the general public but also of most -2- literary critics seem determined by their acceptance or rejection of the values which Kerouac, Cohen, and Burroughs espouse. These values represent the end-product of a long and subtle battle for a new form of consciousness, a battle fought in the realms _.of literature, politics and philosophy. A sketching of some of the major figures and attitudes in this battle of consciousness may help to clarify many of the assumptions which Kerouac, Cohen, and Burroughs accept, as well as the ideas and feelings which they find fundamental to life. Preud was a central figure in this quest for a new form of consciousness. He suggested, in Civilization and Its Discontents, the terms of the argument between society and the individual (the two opposing forces in this battle of consciousness), when he recognized the essential antagonism between the demands of in• stinct and the restrictions of civilization. The conflict de• fined by Preud formed the basis for the theories of Norman 0. Brown and Herbert Marcuse, two contemporary social analysts who have done much to further a 'dialectic of liberation.' In Life Against Death, Brown suggests that the essence of contemporary society lies in the repression of the individual, a repression which creates an ever-increasing sense of guilt in man. Subli• mation, the alternative to repression, does not eliminate guilt, but furthers the alienation of sexual energy from the body, thereby increasing man's sense of guilt about his own physical being. Herbert Marcuse discusses much the same theory of repression in a political context. He argues that a society which has long -3- encouraged delayed satisfaction, work, productiveness, and secu• rity destroys men through its trend towards repressive affluence. Society manages individual needs, and in doing so, makes of man a predictable machine. Both Brown and Marcuse insist that a general change in con• sciousness is desperately needed within the contemporary world. Brown encourages man's return to his body, while Marcuse asserts the value of immediate satisfaction, pleasure, play, and recep- tiveness. The values which they offer have become the general assumptions of a whole counter-culture, one which firmly believes that, if a man can re-spiritualize himself and his immediate environment, then there is hope of his survival. Otherwise the repressive forces of society, whose influence extends over thought, emotion, and senses, will succeed completely in their degradation and depersonalization of man. Both Brown and Marcuse believe the artist is the person who can best instigate the change in contemporary consciousness.

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