Neal Cassady
: The Man Who Set The World Free
grew up as a quasi-homeless wayfaring boy with his alcoholic, unemployed father in the projects of Denver. His unconventional upbringing led to adolescence rife with theft, drug use, and extreme sexual awakening at a young age. Cassady grew up quite quickly and led an overexposed life, which foreshadows his death at the age of 42 of exposure, next to railroad tracks in Mexico. His life, however, seems to be regarded by many as the eighth wonder of the world. He was full of an interminable curiosity and energy, and was considered by many as the herald angel of the Beat Movement. The oft-used term to describe Cassady, "Damaged Angel," has its ...
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task of finishing their days as pennyless drunkards, I alone, as the sharer of their way of life, presented a replica of childhood to which their vision could daily turn, and in being thus grafted onto them, I became the unnatural son of a few score beaten men.
( The First Third)
With him as not only the legendary driver of On The Road but also as the driver of the bus with the Merry Pranksters in tow, the two generations were symbolically connected by this great man, this damaged angel, Neal Cassady. His influence spanned over many different writers, artists, most notably the Grateful Dead, and prominent figures of the time. He tied the two movements together to make the fifties and sixties a time of complete revolution in America. He could be considered the bridge between the two generations, bringing the poetic and limit-pushing factors of the Beat Generation to the wild and unchained psychedelic era.
Cassady was a major part of and much of the inspiration for the Beat ...
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New Jersey saw Cassady as an ideal hero and mate. Their early sexual relationship and Cassady's later rejection of Ginsberg both had a significant effect on Ginsberg's writing. (Richman). Jack Kerouac (Sal) tells the story of when Dean (Neal) met Carlo (Allen Ginsberg) in On the Road, "Two keen minds that they are, they took to each other at the drop of a hat. Two piercing eyes glanced into two piercing eyes – the holy con-man with the shining mind, and the sorrowful poetic con-man with the dark mind that is Carlo Marx…Their energies met head on…The whole mad swirl of everything that was to become began then…" (Kerouac 8). Kerouac and Cassady took many aimless, ...
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"Neal Cassady." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 22 Dec. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Neal-Cassady/76290>
"Neal Cassady." Essayworld.com. December 22, 2007. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Neal-Cassady/76290.
"Neal Cassady." Essayworld.com. December 22, 2007. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Neal-Cassady/76290.
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