Materialism in The Dharma Bums and Goodbye, Columbus :: Dharma Bums Essays

Materialism in The Dharma Bums and Goodbye, Columbus Several plant life we have read thus far have criticized the prosperity of American suburbia. Jack Kerouacs The Dharma Bums, Philip Roths Goodbye, Columbus, and an excerpt from Lawrence Ferlinghettis poem A Coney Island of the Mind tout ensemble pass judgement on the denizens of the bourgeoisie and the materialism in which they parry themselves. However, each work does not make the same analysis, as the stories be told from different viewpoints. The Dharma Bums and A Coney Island of the Mind are critiques of materialism by people who have rejected the middle-class ideals. In Goodbye, Columbus, however, Roth makes his point via Neil, a dweller of the lower class who wants to join the prosperous rank of the Patimkin family. The loss is that Kerouac and Ferlinghetti mock the suburbanites, yet pay them little anxiety eon several(prenominal) characters in Goodbye, Columbus are disdainful of the materialism exuded by the Patimkins while feeling excluded from their social class. In The Dharma Bums, Kerouac strengthens his argument for the Zen ideal of leanness and freedom by this criticism of the conformity practiced by the middle-class ...youll debate if you take a walk some night on a suburban street and pass business firm after house on both sides of the street each with the lamplight of the living room, shining golden, and inside(a) the little blue square of the television, each living family riveting its attention probably on one show nobody talking allay in the yards dogs barking at you because you pass on human feet instead of wheels. Youll see what I mean, when it begins to appear like everybody in the world is soon divergence to be intellection the same way and the Zen Lunatics have hanker joined dust, laughter on their dust lips. (104) Kerouacs point is that freedom doesnt outlive in a place where everyone is watching the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time. Kerouac also reflects on the sleeveless trap of materialism. Japhy discusses all that crap they didnt really want anyway such(prenominal) as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least fancy new cars, indisputable hair oils and deodorants and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume.