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Emily Moore
Dr. Iain Ellis
English 203
2 May 2016
William Burroughs: A True Rebel Writer
William Burroughs, an American novelist, satirist, essayist, painter, short story writer,
and spoken word performer, was by all means accomplished. His most notoriously known title,
however, was that of a big contributor to the Beat Movement. In consequence to the Beat
Movement, the Beat Generation was quickly established. The Beat Generation was a group of
postmodernist authors, including Burroughs, whose literature explored and influenced American
culture in the post-World War II era. While the Beat Generation was thriving, Burroughs started
to write about his own personal experiences with drugs, violence, and homosexuality. This was
accomplished by using a unique writing style called the cut-up technique, pioneered by
Burroughs and his close friend Brion Gysin, in order to portray such controversial and rebellious
behavior. William Burroughs captured the youth through his rejection of conformity. This is
exposed through the use of his own explicit views toward what are considered non-traditional
post-World War II values, such as drug use, violence, and homosexuality.
William Burroughs was born to Laura Lee and Mortimer Burroughs in 1914 in St. Louis,
Missouri ("William S. Burroughs"). Burroughs was born into a wealthy family. His grandfather,
William Seward Burroughs Sr., invented an adding-machine technology ("William S.
Burroughs). Burroughs grew up attending prep schools and eventually studied literature at
Harvard University ("William S. Burroughs). Uninspired after college, Burroughs traveled to

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New York and met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac (William S. Burroughs). Shortly
thereafter, the three would construct the foundation of the Beat Generation.
Drug use was the most common form of youth rebellion at the time. Once Burroughs
landed in New York he started experimenting with drugs (Birmingham). His drug use came from
his boredom with societal expectations (William S. Burroughs, The Art). Burroughs
experimented with LSD, mescaline, and heroin (William S. Burroughs, The Art). Since
Burroughs graduated from Harvard, it would have been unconventional of him not to become
successful by the standards of mainstream society. In an interview Burroughs exclaimed, I
didn't seem to have much interest in becoming a successful advertising executive or whatever, or
living the kind of life Harvard designs for you (qtd. in William S. Burroughs, The Art).
Because Burroughs attended prestigious schools growing up and found himself aligning with
subversive cultures (by experimenting with drugs, etc.) he was a role model for other rebellious
youths of the time. Drugs were no longer a fad of the less fortunate because Burroughs himself
was an example that drug use could be prevalent within the upper class. He found mainstream
societys fear of drugs complete nonsense (William S. Burroughs, The Art).
Burroughs drug use is the first aspect of his writing that alludes to his own profound
rejection of mainstream society. Burroughs uses his first novel, Junkie, to unmask the lifestyle of
heroin addicts in the 1950s. In each of Burroughs novels, he refers to heroin as junk. Heroin
was a subject that Burroughs knew well, mostly because it was the driving force behind his own
addiction (Birmingham). Burroughs writings reflected his idea that, Addiction is solely about
control (qtd. in William S. Burroughs, The Art). He found addiction coinciding with drama
(William S. Burroughs, The Art). In his book, Naked Lunch, Burroughs uses his alter ego, Lee

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the Agent, to describe his own journey through his heroin addiction. Lee starts off fleeing from
police and it is evident that Burroughs respect for the police was lacking. This is apparent in his
personal life and his novels. Burroughs revealed in an interview, Many policemen and narcotics
agents are precisely addicted to power, to exercising a certain nasty kind of power over people
who are helpless (qtd. in William S. Burroughs, The Art). This statement can be seen as
Burroughs own belief of how power and advantage is an addiction, much like drugs. Although
Burroughs had power and advantage his whole life, he never acknowledged it (William S.
Burroughs, The Art).
Burroughs writing style is such that readers may believe he is actively on drugs. This
assumption can be made due to his use of the cut-up technique, ellipses, and the absence of a
defining plot. Burroughs created this jagged technique by writing a piece of work, cutting up the
work with scissors, and then rearranging the pieces to form new phases and meanings (Skerl). By
using such a technique, he was able to take the minds of his readers along with him on a druginduced journey. He abandoned the rules of proper writing, and indulged in his own rules, which
was his own form of escapism. Burroughs used hallucinations and imaginary zones, called
interzones" in his writing in order to take the reader along with him on his journey. In the third
interzone, The Market, Burroughs uses a bizarre stream of consciousness when Lee exclaims,
The City is visited by epidemics of violence, and the untended dead are eaten by vultures in the
streets. Albinos blink in the sun. Boys sit in trees, languidly masturbate (Burroughs 98). Naked
Lunch is a series of essays, fantasies, prose poems, dramatic fragments, bitter arguments, jokes,
puns, epigrams that are all drug-induced (Gold). While many see Burroughs addiction and
writing style as outlandish, he viewed it as his own personal journey.

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Burroughs use of violence in Naked Lunch was considered by many to be horrendously
revolting. He exploits sexual acts with both women and men in a violently obscene nature. For
example, Burroughs describes a threesome between the characters Mark, Mary, and Johnny.
Mary asks Mark if she can hang him while engaging in sex. He says yes, but then ends up
dragging Mary to the platform and tying a noose around her neck. Burroughs states, He jerks
her to her feet and tightens the nooseHer neck snapsJohnny douses Mary with gasoline from
an obscene Chimu jar of white jade (Burroughs 89). Because much of Burroughs writing
incorporates numerous similar abominable acts, it is easy for readers to find him morally and
socially corrupt.
Burroughs descriptions of explicit homosexual acts within his novels, most particularly in
Naked Lunch, petrified mainstream society. He saw a contradiction between what Americas
national identity was supposed to be, and what it was through his eyes (Harris 243). Burroughs
considered homosexuality a form of addiction, and compared it to the United States addiction to
materialistic goods (Schjeldahl). In Naked Lunch, Burroughs illustrates night clubs and other
social places, where people would congregate to find sexual partners to engage in homosexual
acts. According to Harris, Burroughs writing is so potent and so extraordinary due to his strict,
literal over powerful visceral force (Harris 244). For example, Burroughs writes, Greek lads
white as marble fuck dog style on the portico of great golden templenaked Mugwump twangs
a lute (Burroughs 106). Burroughs was angry that during the two most crucial decades of
development and experiment, homosexuality was still frowned upon (Harris 247). Ironically, the
political issues that defined the eras time were totalitarianism and individual freedom (Harris
250). Because these are polar opposites, it is clear to see that Burroughs would not give in to the

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totalitarian regime. He was bound to experiment and find his own personal freedom, which he
did through his writings.
Burroughs repudiated the mainstream culture. He encouraged rebellious youth to express
their individual freedom, and will be remembered for his unique writing style. It is clear that
William Burroughs wanted to write about the unseen and untold, and did so from the standpoint
of a member within the subversive culture through a technique that represents the epitome of
rebellion. Naked Lunch was initially banned in the United States and the United Kingdom in
1959 due to obscenity laws. After much controversy, a Massachusetts judge repealed the ban in
1966, deeming it as having social value. Burroughs exploitation of drug use, violence, and
homosexuality undoubtedly took mainstream society by storm. His work was the embodiment of
youth rebellion at the time, and even to this day. William Burroughs passed away in Lawrence,
Kansas, in 1997, leaving a legacy for the upcoming subversive cultures.

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Works Cited
Birmingham, Jed. William Burroughs and the History of Heroin. Reality Studio. 2 Nov. 2009.
Web. 02 March 2016.
Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1959. Print.
Gold, Herbert. "Instead of Love, the Fix." The New York Times. 25 Nov. 1962. Web. 1 May
2016.
Harris, Oliver. Can You See a Virus? The Queer Cold War of William Burroughs. Journal of
American Studies. 2.33 (1999): 243-266. Web. 3 Mar. 2016
Schjeldahl, Peter. The Outlaw. The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 3. Feb. 2014 Web. 24 Feb.
2016.
Skerl, Jenny. William S. Burroughs Cut-Ups. Language is a Virus. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.
"William S. Burroughs." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
"William S. Burroughs, The Art of Fiction No. 36." Interview by Conrad Knickerbocker. The
Paris Review. The Paris Review, 1965. Web. 24 Feb. 2016.