Therefore these 9-to-5 working people have chosen a kind of escape from the reality; they read the books by Kerouac, Ginsberg and their friends which help them, at least for a while, forget their problems with a mortgage of their house or an unpleasant boss. They imagine themselves as one of the heroes of these books but in the morning they become perfect caring fathers and star subordinates again.
Every movement swallows up itself one day and in the end, the young revolting intellectuals who claimed they would never be like the ordinary people, if they do not die from overdosing from drugs and alcohol, usually change into grandmas and grandpas who dig in the garden and tell their grandchildren about their stormy youth. For instance, Carolyn Cassady who was the wife of Kerouac’s angel Neal Cassady lives her peaceful life at a farm and she writes memoirs. Conclusion & Contribution
Johnny Depp expressed the contribution of the beat generation in his Rolling Stone article: “Without On the Road, Howl or Naked Lunch, for example, would we have been blessed with the likes of Hunter S, Thompson and Bob Dylan? Or countless other writers and poets of that caliber who were born in the Fifties or Sixties? Where would we be without modern classics like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or The Times They Are A-Changing? … In the end, what can anyone…scholar, professor, student or biographer…really say about these angels and devils who once walked among us, though maybe just a bit higher off the ground?”.