The Appropriation of the East in the U.S. 1960s Counterculture
The Appropriation of the East in the U.S. 1960s Counterculture

Summary/Abstract: Seymour Glass, the main character of J.D. Salinger’s Glass family stories, would be a potential poet if it had not been for his early suicide. In “Seymour: An Introduction,” his brother Buddy Glass writes about Seymour’s poems and the universe of literature, at the same time as he evokes childhood memories. However, Seymour’s poems are never shown to the reader of “Seymour: An Introduction;” they are kept in Buddy’s hands and in the readers’ imagination. They are invisible poems that Buddy uses in an attempt to legitimate Seymour’s brilliant existence in the Western reality. The poems, as Buddy suggests, are in haiku form – Japanese poetry. Seymour constantly builds a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures (in relation to religion, literature, philosophy), and this is done through Buddy’s narratives about his family, the Glass family. Jack Kerouac and some writers from the beat generation also incorporated the Eastern culture in their works, especially regarding religion. Some of them, including Kerouac, studied Buddhism and found in the Eastern religion and literature a way to escape the socio-political struggles the U.S. was facing during the 1960s. Bearing that in mind, it is relevant to ask: How do J.D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac develop an argument in their works regarding the appropriation of Eastern religion and literature in the U.S. 1960s culture? Thus, this essay aims at discussing such questions based on Roland Barthes’ book Empire of Signs, in order to understand the bridge Salinger and Kerouac built between Eastern and Western cultures during the long 1960s.

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