"Blessed Are the Pure of Heart." Variations on Magical Realism in the Beat Generation: Pathways to Critique and Resistance
Issue Date
2009-01-01Author
Lagaron, Elizabeth Marie
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
200 pages
Type
Dissertation
Degree Level
Ph.D.
Discipline
English
Rights
This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
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This dissertation explores literary depictions of characters experiencing self discovery as they are presented by three of the writers of the Beat Generation: Jack Kerouac, Elise Cowen, and Diane di Prima. Each of the texts--Dr. Sax, Loba, and Cowen's poetry-- demonstrates how disempowered or oppressed characters evolve, learn to define themselves, and discover a truer sense of self during times of war, struggle, conflict or difficulty. The types of oppression the protagonists and speakers face in these texts is wide-ranging and diverse, but magical realism, and variations on the literary themes presented in magical realism, becomes for these writers a weapon their characters employ for critique and for self preservation against the existing social order. Magical elements allow these characters to reflect their realities and--at best--resist those realities. Pan's Labyrinth is presented here as a model for these specific themes -magic as a tool that can empower the disempowered--and as a lens through which the other texts are read and understood.
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