A Beat Memoir :: Literary Analysis, Johnson

Johnson constructs this bitter-sweet and lyrical autobiography from her relationship with aspiring Beat writer Kerouac in 1957. Johnson re-creates her memoir from the confessional perspective she wishes to be heard, and she mentions Robert Lowell to emphasise this confessional broker .The author is behind the text, controlling its meaning, using intentionality (Anderson, 1988, p2). Also Johnson uses her text as catharsis and as self-defence in response to Kerouacs writings. (Lee, 2000, p.98) to reclaim the indicant she had relinquished to Kerouac.Johnson selects a bleak passage from Kerouacs novel Bleak Angels, to illustrate his womanhood hatred For that chunky roll flesh with the juicy deal Id sit through eternities of horror in gray rooms ... (p.133). Johnson wants her revenge on fib (Gusdorf, in Onley, 1980, p.36), to retrospectively break a silence that I finally wish to give up. (p.262). The simple phrase, the poems Hettie kept mute. (p.262) links the silence of Glassma n to the wider literary human race where women have been excluded from the male canon. Johnson is writing in 1983 from the position of an experienced feminist, psychologically analysing how her relationship with Kerouac stifled her identity and how women adopt consensualised exploitation when they swear in the sanative powers of love as the English believe in tea ... (p.128). The author uses the first person and the present tense for this recollection adding immediacy, as if now realising that He could somehow cancel you out. (p.128). Glassman mistakenly imagined she could resume Kerouac of his blue, bruised eye melancholy (p.128). In this memoir Johnson appears to privilege Kerouac, presenting him first, but this is so his personality can be analysed on base Glassmans and found to be wanting. Johnson as author uses Kerouac (as he appears to have used her) to work through her psychological issues from 1957 and 1983. Johnson does more than tell, she uses double subjectivit y to permit the reader understand the two Joyces, the innocent one who put on a lot of eye shadow (p.127) to attract Kerouac, and the other older woman who is wondering all the same if it was original (p.131), as the reader may be. Johnson demonstrates the crucial link between author, narrator and protagonist, (Lejeune in Anderson, p2). All three co-exist in the text, but none can be the real Johnson because, as Mandel argues, autobiography pretends to be the whole life of the author but is a construction (1980, p.A Beat Memoir Literary Analysis, JohnsonJohnson constructs this bitter-sweet and lyrical memoir from her relationship with aspiring Beat writer Kerouac in 1957. Johnson re-creates her memoir from the confessional perspective she wishes to be heard, and she mentions Robert Lowell to emphasise this confessional element .The author is behind the text, controlling its meaning, using intentionality (Anderson, 1988, p2). Also Johnson uses her text as catharsis and as self -defence in response to Kerouacs writings. (Lee, 2000, p.98) to reclaim the power she had relinquished to Kerouac.Johnson selects a bleak passage from Kerouacs novel Bleak Angels, to illustrate his woman hatred For that lumpy roll flesh with the juicy hole Id sit through eternities of horror in gray rooms ... (p.133). Johnson wants her revenge on history (Gusdorf, in Onley, 1980, p.36), to retrospectively break a silence that I finally wish to give up. (p.262). The simple phrase, the poems Hettie kept mute. (p.262) links the silence of Glassman to the wider literary world where women have been excluded from the male canon. Johnson is writing in 1983 from the position of an experienced feminist, psychologically analysing how her relationship with Kerouac stifled her identity and how women adopt consensualised exploitation when they believe in the curative powers of love as the English believe in tea ... (p.128). The author uses the first person and the present tense for this rec ollection adding immediacy, as if now realising that He could somehow cancel you out. (p.128). Glassman mistakenly imagined she could cure Kerouac of his blue, bruised eye melancholy (p.128). In this memoir Johnson appears to privilege Kerouac, presenting him first, but this is so his personality can be analysed alongside Glassmans and found to be wanting. Johnson as author uses Kerouac (as he appears to have used her) to work through her psychological issues from 1957 and 1983. Johnson does more than tell, she uses double subjectivity to let the reader understand the two Joyces, the naive one who put on a lot of eye shadow (p.127) to attract Kerouac, and the other older woman who is wondering all the same if it was true (p.131), as the reader may be. Johnson demonstrates the crucial link between author, narrator and protagonist, (Lejeune in Anderson, p2). All three co-exist in the text, but none can be the real Johnson because, as Mandel argues, autobiography pretends to be the w hole life of the author but is a construction (1980, p.