Kerouac Walking Tour Blog

Aaron King

10/24/13

FYSH: Prof. Zabalbeascoa

Jack Kerouac Walking Tour Response

            The “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Tour” is an informative tour held in downtown Lowell describing the life of the famed author. A native of the city, Kerouac wrote in a spontaneous style that reflected the nature of his lifestyle and of his time here in the city. The tour of the pubs that he frequented as well as the general walking tour both do well to illustrate this nature. Kerouac was an alcoholic, and the disease would ultimately lead to his death. His childhood was marked by a strong Catholic upbringing under his mother, who he was very fond of. The tour gives great voice to Kerouac’s life and also to why it celebrates a man with such a controversial personal life. As a man who very closely resembles the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” type of lifestyle, it is interesting to see more about his personal life and how came to be such a prolific yet self-detrimental individual. Both the walking tour and pub tour illustrate his life very well.

            The walking tour began at the Lowell Public Library, where Kerouac spent much of his time. He would skip class to go read classics such as Shakespeare, and this is where he would begin to get interested in classic literature. Following this, the tour led us to Lowell High. Kerouac’s time here was marked by a withdrawn but also popular demeanor, and he also was very involved in the athletics the school had to offer. He did fairly well in school. After the high school was Kearney Square, a popular hang-out spot for Kerouac and his friends during his youth. The guide described this place as very reflective of Kerouac’s personality, both polite and disrespectful at the same time, a place Kerouac would have fit right into. Next, the tour guided us to the Jack Kerouac Commemorative, which has inscriptions from various works of Kerouac. The memorial itself consists of various pedestals that intend to represent Kerouac’s Christian and Buddhist background that presents itself all too often in his writing. Finally, the tour led us to the Boott Cotton Mills. These were the mills that Kerouac most often described in his writing, and his descriptions reflected his view of working. As the guide explained, while Kerouac writes his characters as having jobs, his opinion is that the pleasure in life lies in other places.  

            Another portion of the tour that I took was the Pubs Tour. As an alcoholic, Kerouac obviously spent a great deal of time at these pubs and they had a profound impact on him. The first pub was the Worthen House. Established before 1900, much of the interior decoration is still in the restaurant from that time. Next, the tour went to Ricardo’s Café, followed by Ward Eight. This tour demonstrated the influence that alcoholism had on Kerouac’s life. As his views changed of the world around him, and slowly grew more and more pessimistic, he turned to alcohol. He became more depressed as the years went on, and his health deteriorated as a result of his drinking. His writing reflected the shift in outlook.

            These Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival tours were very informative. Not only did they demonstrate in great detail Kerouac’s life, his influences, and how these reflected in his writing, but also the effect he had on the city itself. The uses of the places we visited, which were to commemorate what he did during his time in the city and explore these actions, show that the role Kerouac played in Lowell’s past and present is significant. Just as the city had a deep and profound impact on the author, he meant a lot to the city. Also, this tour showed that to live in Lowell is to live in a place with rich and meaningful history. Overall the tour was a great experience in learning about Lowell.

            

God of Carnage Response

Aaron King

10/1/13

FYSH Wednesday: Zabalbeascoa

God of Carnage: Response

            Characters in any work of literature, be it a play, book, movie, or other can have a monumental impact in shaping that work’s outcome. Many plots are even driven by the characters. In God of Carnage, as we do not see the main plot, the characters we are introduced to are what shape the play. The parents of two children, Benjamin and Henry, all convene to discuss Benjamin’s injuring Henry on a playground with a stick. While the play is rather simple narratively (the adults spend the night discussing what to make of the situation), characteristically it is rich and this potency of character development segues into the development of the plot (the deterioration of the conversation into mayhem and irrationality). The characters in this play are contemptible: Michael, Veronica, Alan, and Annette all have some quality to them that one can’t help but despise. And yet, we grow to sympathize with them, because despite these qualities they grow on us. In any work of literature it does not matter whether a character is likable or not, so long as we sympathize with his or her motivations. Two characters that demonstrate this are the men, Alan and Michael.

            Michael, in the play, hosts the other parents Alan and Annette with his wife Veronica. During the play, he attempts to be as welcoming as possible, offering his wife’s cooking to his guests and generally trying to be amicable to them. However, this endeavor soon becomes overbearing and we see him even defend the bully that beat his son. Soon he even disagrees with his wife about disciplining Benjamin and now they themselves are arguing rather than with the other couple. Michael’s lack of a spine is what makes him detestable; he is quick to appease anyone on any topic just so as to avoid conflict. Really the only time he takes definitive action is when he learns his mother is taking a faulty drug and tells her to stop, and this comes at a fast-paced part of the play when there is little order to what is going. And yet, despite Michael’s faults in character, we still sympathize with him, we still like him. He is just a simple man with an “ordinary job” as he describes it, thrown into this chaotic situation that he is surely not accustomed to. We are inclined to see his lack of fortitude as amicability, as trying to ease things over. It shows how likability of a character is irrelevant, so long as his or motivations are just. This is true with an even more detestable character, Alan.

            Alan is husband to Annette and father of the aggressor in the play, Benjamin. Alan spends a hefty majority of the play on his cell phone, trying to quell a controversy over a drug that has serious side-effects. Alan is certainly detestable: even from the beginning of the play (and during the entirety of it) he defends his son’s hostile actions as normal, as routine; he even goes so far as to compare them to those of children in Africa who are taught to kill at age eight. This justification definitively adds to his despicability. In addition his constant talking on his cell phone shows us his true character: a sleazy lawyer who works to defend a drug that has very serious side-effects. However, Alan’s faults also come with sympathy. In fact his moral ambiguity is one of the funnier parts of the play, and many of the times he answers his cell phone add comedy to the chaos that this play degenerates into. In this way we justify his flawed character as a funny and consequently “good” aspect of the play.

            The characters in God of Carnage illustrate that likability of a character is irrelevant; if there is something to justify their despicability, be it humor or motivations, we look to those rather than their flaws in character. Michael and Alan attest to this, as do the other characters (read: Annette’s vomiting all over the room, Veronica’s drunken antics). Despite all of the characters’ flaws and mistakes, discussing a disagreement between children and becoming like children themselves, we still sympathize with them. This is certainly true for other forms of media as well: current shows such as Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Madmen celebrate this so-called “anti-hero,” and they all show how much we relish in the bad character. God of Carnage simply adds to that list.