A Brief Analysis of Ginsberg's Graphic Novel "Howl"

Ginsberg searches for a release of frustration by means of sex, drugs, and jazz. In his graphic novel of "Howl" he provides an image of a labyrinth alongside his introduction guiding the reader into, what I consider to be a confusion of poetic verse. There is no direct correlation if you dissect line by line and yet if you view in its entirety it gives the indication of a riddle or puzzle connecting to some form of prevailing hope in the conclusion. While his thoughts are ambiguously written, he subjects himself to experimentation with expressions of verse in no particular order, following no poetic standards of writing but chants his emotions in an unscrupulous manner.   He publishes a graphic novel of his poems trying to capture a vision and does this expletively.  The Beat Generation are sexually driven, drug induced, jazz seeking junkies living in a labyrinth, not just physically but mentally looking, searching for a fix. 

I would like to point out a very important factor in Ginsberg’s graphic novel. I find his poem to be an encrypted message in some form, although some readers may question my mental state, read a few lines before jumping to that conclusion. First you need to understand Ginsberg's history, this may shed light on my assumptions.Taking into account how the “great minds” were seen as rebellious thinkers and were found in contempt of their self-expressive artistry, Ginsberg may have yielded to secret messages to avoid further conflict with the law. Another reason may be due to the genetics of having a mother who was diagnosed with schizophrenia; this may play a vital role in his abstract thinking. These possibilities may hold ground to my scrutiny. 

As I started reading, things began to make more sense in his confusion of thoughts. Ginsberg not only represents narration for the “best minds” regarding his generation but in actuality he is also glorifying himself or the many beings of himself. How does he do this when he constantly refers to the “best minds” you might ask? Many of us know that Schizophrenia is a condition that is not limited to one characteristic but is described in many forms: incoherence, delusions, hallucinations, hyperactive or catatonic behaviors; the very words he uses to describe the “great minds,” as well as his mental state throughout his poem.  Let me first mention what I  unfolded as I read through the first few pages of the novel and then you can make your own connections to my analysis or make additional commentary.

The first major component that stood out to me was how the pages of the novel are labeled. In the “contents” page he uses roman numerals to separate the poems and regular numbers to indicate the pages; the “introduction” page indicates page “13” with the use of numbers. However, the page containing the first line of his poem does not use the number but rather the letter “I” and ironically begins the poem with a reference to himself using the first person “I.” Beginning the entire novel this way sets the stage for the entire focus of himself, a form of egocentrism. All the pages from this point on use the letter “I” in place of the number 1.  At first I thought it was a typo but then as I read along, I interpreted the “I” to mean the many hidden personalities that Ginsberg may be describing throughout his poem in addition to the “best minds” of his generation. 

He literally uses the word mad in several ways throughout the novel in this order: madness is only used once; mad, madhouses, and madman are used three times; madtowns, and madder are used only once. This seems to be a similie likened to empathize with his mother’s mental condition of schizophrenia using his poems as devices with hidden codes hoping that he can reach those who understand him literally and symbolically because he himself is just as mad as the rest of the “great minds” or maybe even "madder." His form and technique can be construed as brilliantly insane in how he uses a graphic novel to give his poetry more depth in addition to the fact that there is so much ambiguity that I find it difficult at times to make connections because many of his illustrations are unrelated to the verse.

Could there be another explanation? I do not know! I would hope someone would take a crack at it and see if they can come up with a better interpretation. His egocentrism sets the stage of his graphic novel brilliantly for the many forms of “madness” he mentions with riddles and puzzles that keep a reader searching to make connections. I am not a fan of this novel and found it lacking in many aspects of how he portrays women; the images depicted are degrading and vile, overall disgusting. In other words, women play no humanistic role in society but are objects of their affection, sadly taken and given like a momentary fix. 

HOWL & OTHER POEMS BY ALLEN GINSBERG Review

PART I

According to Dictionary.com, the thesaurus for the term “howl” is defined as a “long, painful cry.” As this poem sets the stage for a lamentable clamor of emotions that appear to be unsettled, it is for Carl Solomon that Allen Ginsberg writes these series of poems. It is through the lens of an outsider that he laments being eccentric and views his mother as well as Solomon as misunderstood intelligent beings who were cast off from society and institutionalized for what society considered to be insane but to Ginsberg, it was misunderstood and shunned due to their elevated way of thinking which is a condition diagnosed as some form of psychosis. Forced to the underground world of constrained artistry, the Beat Generation become self-destructive and although may appear to lose hope, find a way to cope with their ideals of self-indulgence the best way they know how. 

Similar to Jack Kerouac’s novel, Ginsberg addresses a search for freedom. He feels ousted by a society that rejected his way of thinking leaving him and his generation “naked. . . bared. . . expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull” (9). The “best minds,” who represent the Beat Generation, are resolved to going underground to avoid the mistreatment of “Capitalism” (13). They commit societal suicide by throwing “their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time. . . who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully” (16). I find it rather interesting that he uses a combination of alliteration and a paradox to describe their attempts “successively unsuccessfully.” He seems to be caught between the failure of society’s injustice and having to give up ones identity to become superficial. Ginsberg expresses their search of “supernatural ecstasy” by searching for “jazz or sex or soup,” by soup I would assume drugs, in order to reach an elevated state of thinking (12).  It is through their mindscapes that they are able to express some form or artistic meaning to life outside of conformity through their nakedness of their souls both symbolically and figuratively. His poems are run-on expressions that seem similar to Kerouac’s writing, but to analyze this would take away from the “howl” that his poems so strongly and emphatically denote. Therefore I will only discuss my interpretations of his poems. I read the poems but also found the following video on Youtube to have an audio reading with a different take that give emphasis on certain parts of the poems. What I learned was astounding and brought more light into the meaning of the poem. I have provided the link for you to try it out and see if you find a deeper connection to his work aside from your own readings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVGoY9gom50

PART II

Ginsberg introduces the second part of the poem with an interesting question: “What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch!” According to  the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, Moloch is a Semetic god to whom children were sacrificed. He views himself and his generation as having to sacrifice their way of artistic representation for the good of what society believes is acceptable; however, he views the conformists as a system that is lost in a stream of water that he refers to as “the American river. . . whose mind is pure machinery” (21, 22). Ginsberg truly believed that the government’s stance of control pushed them into self-destructive behaviors calling their system a “boatload of sensitive bull****!” Clearly he was disgusted with being an outcast and for being forced to hide behind what he believed was an artistic form of expression. In other words, he lived in the shadows of the Moloch and was confined in an institution in Rockland. The image above is a representation of many of the elements that influenced their behavior into an abyss of resentment. 

PART III

This part of the poem seems to highlight his deepest of emotions and is what inspires him to write in the way he does, like a stream of consciousness that barely gives one a moment to breathe when recited.  Solomon, like Ginsberg’s mother, was clinically “madder” than Ginsberg was because of his way of thinking and self-expression and describes the shock treatments he received as something that still afflicts him. (24). Ginsberg says “I’m with you in Rockland, where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses” (24). Ginsberg together with Solomon were bound to a mental institution and suffered from delusional episodes due to their insanity according to society’s standards. I’m supposing that they were intelligent beings who were misunderstood due to their eccentric ways of thinking and self-expression or in denial that they had any mental psychosis. He glorifies him and holds him in high esteem likened to Jesus in that he will figuratively be resurrected by means of Ginsberg himself by living in his memory. By doing this I interpret Ginsberg is “superhuman[ly]” connected to Solomon’s genius or mental dimension of insanity. 

FOOTNOTE TO HOWL

I find the introduction to this poem pretty interesting because the word “Holy” is repeated 15 times almost in a chant-like introduction to give emphasis to what he believed is holy, setting the stage for a “howl” or song. A footnote usually serves as an explanation or afterthought but I think it serves the purpose to illustrate a judgment that Ginsberg and the Beat Generation are faced with in their daily lives having to be somewhat mindful of their lifestyles because of what society perceives them to be, and to him, anything that gives the right to freedom of expression, a nonconformist, is by all means considered “HOLY!” 

 A SUPERMARKET IN CALIFORNIA

Ginsberg brings Whitman’s idea of nature to the fore of his figurative world he calls a “supermarket in California.”  Setting and location seem to be an important aspect of Ginsberg’s search of visionary thought. He tries to make connections with food fancies and delicacies and is unable to find satisfaction in his discovery. He feels the displays represent a false meaning alluding to sexual connotations. Ginsberg’s use of words clearly allude to Whitman’s sexual preference. There are many connotations and allusions that I have double meaning but would exhaust the reader in my assumptions. The marketplace of groceries becomes an “odyssey” of what I believe may represent things that have an expiration date and if time is not used to the full then the items spoil. At the end of the day upon the hour you pay the price for making use of that precious Time before your time is up. Like Walt Whitman’s poem, there is the cycle of rebirth in the sense that another day is another opportunity to appreciate the pleasures available. In other words, seize the day or let it spoil.

AMERICA

As I read this poem I see how different it is than the others because he does not have stanzas, or prose, but he uses one line sentences. Some sentences contain different thoughts that are not related but independent of each other. He seems to be quite emotionally driven with political connotations.  He “used to be a communist,” reads Marx, and admits to smoking, drinking, and getting high. He addresses the media and how it controls society and despite his ambitions his thoughts go unpublished. Then on page 43 he begins to use almost an illiterate slang by saying “her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader’s Digest. . . That no good.” I don’t know if he is mocking the illiterate or if he is mocking America as the culprit for illiteracy, regardless, he makes a strong statement by asking “America, is this correct?” I would agree that he would be politically correct in this respect but can lose the reader with his muddled way of expressing himself.

IN BACK OF THE REAL

This poem is a great analogy to hope. Ginsberg uses the figurative flower to represent life in a symbolic sense. He sees a wilted flower and the result of its dryness is due to machinery around him. He likens its "brittle black stem" to the one that crowned "Jesus" (56). The way the flower struggles and withers with every passing season, is a cycle of rebirth and renewal and thus brings hope to the world. Flowers are the hope for humanity; they represent the natural world in its purity and have an affinity to survive under inclement weather conditions. Humans, who are far more superior to a simple flower, Ginsberg believes that we are the flowers of the world in search for survival regardless of the circumstances. The major themes in both Kerouac and Ginsberg’s work is their search for freedom and the belief in hope that illuminates them into the path of enlightenment which seems to be a form of escape from reality.

     

     ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac is a story about finding yourself in a system of a world that is full of traditionalism. It may very well be that conformity is viewed as a passive inclination but Jack believed in something more than just living conventionally. However, I believe Jack is caught between conformity and passivity. Jack has a deep curiosity for the significance of life and lives in what seems to be his friend’s shadows, Neal Cassidy in particular. He expresses a keen interest in this character by “keeping track of everything that happened everyday---everything Neal did and said” (150). Jack seems to be searching for his own identity and meaning and learns from experience that life is unpredictable and thus is unsure if his journey will provide him with life’s answers. On the road, he discovers a whole new language. This language is a form of connecting with nature, something that is quite a compelling attribute to Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself. Walt describes the physical nature of his body and soul and how his identity celebrates itself through renewal with the passage of time. This poem describes in parallel form Neal’s character and his connection to Jazz and sex. Neal is in constant lust, taking every moment of time to his advantage. He uses his sexuality to his advantage and like the poem he renews himself with acceptation continually and goes into a psychedelic mode of excitement in the presence of Jazz music.

     Because of Jack’s strong connection to Neal, he describes him as a “holy con-man” (112). According to society, Neal’s character is far from being holy; however, he lives up to the trueness of a con-man. So why does Jack describe him as holy? Is it because he believes that his actions are due to the nature of experimentation not causing any harm to an individual? Many people become curious of their sexual preferences as well as their sexuality. Jack views Neal as a strong minded individual who is searching for answers and discovers on his own that his inclinations are natural to him. His excitement for Jazz almost seems to connect him to God because he glorifies the musician “popeyed with awe” (229). Jack endeavors to assimilate Neal's searches for meaning and satisfaction in many forms, Jazz brings him almost to enlightenment. Neal brings meaning to his life through physical expression, sexually and through Jazz music, as a cycle of rebirth, similar to a rite of passage. Hearing a great melody can make many people nostalgic. It is an experience that is beyond understanding and is therefore described by Jack as "the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever" (229).

     Neal’s I don’t care attitude keeps Jack constantly wanting to be in his presence. Jack feels a brotherly affection toward him and finds himself divided between two lifestyles, his college life and his life on the road with his buddies. Jack finds his behavior out-of-his-mind mad and entertaining; I think he’s taken by his delicious absurdities. Jack most often finds himself lost literally and symbolically and still remains hopeful, always longing for a wife, despite his momentary rendezvous.  He is often forgetful and even asks his friends to help him remember something he was supposed to do back in New York. He heads out on a journey that I consider to be “nowhere and everywhere” because he gets caught up on searching for meaning and yet is unable to grasp the direction his life is going. Regardless, he doesn’t give up.

J. Angel Cardona