“The Sermon” and “A Few Blue Words to the Wise” by Ted Joans are lessons on how to be hip. Much of the language in these two poems is directed toward women who want to be a part of the hipster, beatnik scene. These are perfect pieces to compare to “Minor Characters” by Joyce Johnson. This piece from Johnson illustrates a woman who, on the exterior may seem to fall short of the beatnik ideal explained by Joans. She seems to be faking it, and doing so for someone else. On closer analysis, however, the character in Johnson’s piece is a beat, according to Joans’ example, in every way that really matters.
Joans talks about the importance of breaking away from ones parents, not only physically, but emotionally. He says to “Get rid of the umbilical cord that your/ Dragass prejudiced parents have around your neck.” One does not need their parents throwing “Antique Anglo-Saxon philosophy on you now.” That is exactly what Johnson’s character is trying to do. In the very first scene of the story, the character is moving out of her parents’ house, on Independence Day no less. She got her own furniture and a Picasso Painting to try to separate herself from the previous generation.
As Joans says, “If your neighborhood ain’t hip—split/ Leave it for swinging surroundings." This is where Johnson’s character seems to be faking it. Her decision to move out was not completely for herself, if it was at all. She says herself, that “it was for Alex’s sake [her boyfriend], not mine, that I was going to be independent.” The Bohemian scene described by Joans is not meant to be superficial. Devotion to oneself and finding purpose in everything is at the heart of the Beats. It is hard to find a deeper purpose for oneself if what you are doing is always for someone else.
Johnson’s character is not, however, always doing it for someone else. Alex was “the concrete embodiment of [her] more abstract desire to be ‘free’.” That desire was based around sexuality. She is what Joans calls “a beautiful non-square angel.” Why? Because she “sleep[s] with everybody that’s necessary.” As Johnson’s character says, “sometimes you went to bed with people almost by mistake,” when you’ve stayed up so long that “it almost didn’t matter.” Unfortunately for her, all that was “necessary” was one random guy to get her pregnant. This is one major point that makes this character so real and connected to the Beat ideal. She has lived it and felt the consequences that many times go unheeded.
Independence is the character’s main focus. The story begins on Independence Day, and ends on an independence day of her own. She decides to get an abortion. The father was a one night stand and her boyfriend ran off with another woman. If she has the baby, all the independence and freedom will be lost. She searches for someone who will perform the procedure for her, and eventually finds one who does them under-the-table. She is escorted to and from the doctor by a man who is trying to hit on her. The final scene ends with the main character strongly denying the flirty escort and deciding to go home by herself.
The Johnson piece is powerful and important, because the main character demonstrates the main Beat ideals described by Joans, while at the same time showing strength and independence. She feels that she can now, in the words of Ted Joans, “Love [her] life and live loving every minute in it.”
Hip..
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