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

Materialism in The Dharma Bums and Goodbye, capital of Ohio Several expires we stool all(prenominal)ege thus far have criticized the prosperity of American suburbia. Jack Kerouacs The Dharma Bums, Philip Roths Goodbye, Columbus, and an draw from Lawrence Ferlinghettis poem A Coney Island of the Mind all pass brain on the denizens of the middle-class and the materialism in which they surround themselves. However, each work does not make the same analysis, as the stories are 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 begin class who wants to join the prosperous rank of the Patimkin family. The difference is that Kerouac and Ferlinghetti mock the suburbanites, stock-still pay them little attention while several characters in Goodbye, Columbus are disdainful of the materialis m exuded by the Patimkins while feeling excluded from their neighborly class. In The Dharma Bums, Kerouac strengthens his argument for the Zen ideal of poverty and freedom by this criticism of the conformity practiced by the middle-class ...youll see if you strike a walk some night on a suburban street and pass house after house on both(prenominal) sides of the street each with the lamplight of the living room, shining golden, and inside the little blueweed square of the television, each living family riveting its attention probably on one show nobody talking silence 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 start like everybody in the world is soon going to be thinking the same way and the Zen Lunatics have long joined dust, jape on their dust lips. (104) Kerouacs point is that freedom doesnt exist in a place where everyone is watching the same social occasion and thinking the same thing at the same time. Kerouac also reflects on the futile trap of materialism. Japhy discusses all that crap they didnt really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least fancy new cars, certain hair oils and deodorants and oecumenic junk you finally always see a week ulterior in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a administration of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume.