Beat Generation

William Burroughs was Allen Ginsberg’s closest and oldest friend. Without doubt, they were one of the most famous Beat Generation writers. William Burroughs is best known for the writer of “Naked Lunch” and “Junky”. His work tends to affect people. He revolutionized the structure of fiction by using a technique called Cut-ups. Allen Ginsberg is best known for the writer of “Howl”. Although Burroughs and Ginsberg was the closet friend, they have their own distinctive characteristics that are shown in their novels. In Burroughs’s work, he portrays the drugs scene from a user’s perspective. His novels are easy to read and understand. In Allen Ginsberg’s work, he avoids communicating with readers directly. In this essay, I am going to demonstrate how Burroughs’s American differs from Ginsberg.

The first distinctive difference between the two writers is Burroughs’ works are somewhat user friendly and direct when communicating with readers while Allen Ginsberg’s works are poetic, vague and indirect that each word has a hidden meaning. “At that time I had never used any junk and it did not occur to me to try it. I began looking for someone to buy the two items and that is how I ran into Roy and Herman”. This is a line from Burroughs’ work, Junky, from a book called “the best minds of a generation”. In most of his novels, he tries to be as direct as possible when he is communicating with readers. It is no brainer when you try to figure out what he meant when he wrote “I had never used any junk”. In contrast, Ginsberg’s works are awfully vague that it is as if he wants readers to play a guess game when he tries to communicate with the readers. “Who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy.” This is a line from Allen Ginsberg’s work, Howl. The line is indirect, and the words that were used are obscenity, but at the same time, it can also be meant he is enjoying his life in his unique way to some readers. Howl can be interpreted in...