The Beat Generation is one of the most influential
movements in American literature. The lives of these writers are
just as fascinating as their stories and poetry. The most important
members and contributors were writer Jack Kerouac, poet Allen
Ginsberg, and their best friend, lover, and muse Neal Cassady. These
three men, as well as others along the way, would redefine the roles
of men in a post-World War II America as well as create a new image
for the country. Arguably, it was Cassady who was the catalyst for
this movement, but he hardly wrote a word. He came to New York
from Denver, where his past was fabricated and unbelievable, to have
Kerouac teach him how to write. Cassady, the conman, wanted to
learn from Kerouac and then from Ginsberg. He was immortalized in
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road as Dean Moriarty, the rebel from Denver,
who always chose adventure over responsibility. Allen Ginsberg
wrote him as a “secret hero” in his most famous poem “Howl”
(Ginsberg 136). Both Kerouac and Ginsberg idolized Cassady but
for different reasons. Cassady himself is an enigma, his entire life
story a fabrication. He grew up on the streets of Denver, stealing cars
and hustling. He was also an altar boy and a father of three, and even
tried his hand at writing with his unfinished autobiography The First
Third. With the help of Kerouac, he managed to make his life into
what would later be the embodiment of the Beat Generation. Kerouac
made him seem far more adventurous than Cassady perhaps really
wanted to be. Ginsberg, on the other hand, drew upon Cassady’s sex life in his poetry, focusing on Cassady as a sex symbol. Both
interpretations took a heavy toll on Cassady as he attempted to keep
up with the demands of those who had read On the Road and “Howl.”
For the rest of his life he would try to uphold the standards imposed
on him by his friends and the youth of generations to come. The
impact of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Cassady can be seen in every aspect
of the writers’ lives. The standards they set for Cassady became the
standards they themselves had to live up to and die by
