Am Sem, as always, the plot thickens and I lose my way

So what do I have to work with:
-The naivete of Kerouac's idyllic pastoral description of the people that surround the Terry episode
--further complicated by the racial politics that he ends up being captured in (see "Peasent Dreams")
-The idea of motion and the reaching for pure motion which attaches to their migrancy (see "Dos Passos..."
---again complicated by the fact that they are not totally free (at least one Terry) they are tied to anything that will get them food/shelter. Can the drifters really get off of the truck the Minnesotans are driving?
-The idea that these "felahin" people are the Beatest characters in the novel. Not sure if the support for this will bear out.

Sources
-Everybody gets pissed about Kerouac's racialized ignorance naivete
-There is an undercurrent of "You gotta feel for the guy"
---Corollary of "he wants something that doesn't exist that is analogous with what the margins want--which also doesn't exist.

What do I think?
There is something to say about why some of the people who denounce his niavete cannot denounce his dream, at least not fully. They see it as flawed or delusional but cannot denounce it as malicious. Is the key the filp flop that is disucussed in "White Negro & Negro White." Is that the key!!!!!!!!

I am way to stressed and I want to beat the keyboard against the wall into tiny bits just be done or vomit or explode or something.....

I feel a bit better now...

Am Sem prelim notes

Alright, time to collect my thoughts on this one, especially since I haven't really taken much time with it apart from occasional compulsive requesting of articles through ILL. What I am going to look at is the relationship between Kerouac's representations of people on the margins and his image of America. My first thought was that the migrant nature of many of these people in On the Road was the key, that motion was the key. The migrant Hispanic workers in California, the drifters whom he rides with across Nebraska, they were always in motion and seemed to be idolized, to symbolize something essential to his image of America. I don't think that was a bad idea, but that is not "It." What I've arrived at is that these marginalized people are the "beatest" people in the story. As the America that Kerouac writes about is the America of the Beats it only makes sense that these people on the margins of the mainstream should be at the center of his conception of America. Motion may still be important but the real key is definitely the Beatness of people like Terry, Dean Moriarties Father perhaps even, and the Mexican children on the side of the road to Mexico City.

Brit Sem...Taking shape

Leaving Alfred behind for the moment, I have two major authors who I am going to toss around in this essay. On the one side I have Charles Dickens who, for my purposes, serves as a moralist of the Victorian social order. Gertrude Himmelfarb has my back on this one in The De-Moralization of Society. On the other hand I have Thomas Hardy with Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. In terms of morality and lining these two into an overarching argument of morals marriage and the position of women I see two choices. I can argue that they are opposed to each other, that Hardy truly "shakes his fist at God or society" as some of his contemporaries cried or that underneath it all the same morality that underlies Dickens, which is pointed out by Himmelfarb, beats as strong as ever. I would tend to lean toward the latter though I'm not sure if either of Dickens or Himmelfarb would be inclined to agree. Tough for them.

So current structure:
1 Set up Alfred and family
2 Alfred's life as an aspiring teacher (monitor to pupil-teacher to training college to certificate)
3 With Dickens and the importance of a serious-minded approach to marriage as portrayed in David Copperfield
4 Interlude of Alfred's sister Mary to lead into a brief discussion of London poor and prostitution issues to lead into section of Tess of the D'Urbervilles
5 Alfred ponders marrying as he reads Jude the Obscure at which point I could make the moralist arguments outlined above.
6 Wrap it up and slap a bow on it.

Unusual Brit Sem Paper

Create a bogus citizen of Victorian England and through the story of thier fictitous life discuss the social/historical context of class readings (oh and maybe the readings themselves too). While interesting, I can't help but to feel that this is a little more touchy feely cute than I can handle and take seriously at the same time. Oh well, its kinda growing on me anyway. So on to my fictitous stooge:

Name: Alfred Sparks
Occupation: Clerk of some kind? (see local industry/ Grain merchant perhaps?)
Birthplace and Childhood Home: Small village outside of Dorchester about 15-20 miles.
Home: City of Dorchester in the county of Dorset
Significance of Place: Home of Thomas Hardy
Born: 10 years after Hardy (hmm...need to look that up again)
Died: don't care I think I'll leave the goober living
Personality: Retiring bookish sort, devoted to friends and family, aspires to great learning, too poor to reach it
Major Life Events: Oldest of three Children Alfred is 8-10 when his mother dies in childbirth with his baby sister (younger sister, Molly, is 4-6)
Next major event is the end of his schooling and begining of apprenticship/clerkship with merchant (grain) in Dorchester.
In Dorchester begins to read more. Falls in love with books (he has previously borrowed a few from his schoolmaster see Dickens)