Jack Kerouac, cityCityCITY

R. J. Ellis (University of Birmingham)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1959

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Science Fiction/ Speculative
Story

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“cityCityCITY” is a dystopic science fiction vision of a future society controlled by “Master Centre Love” and its MacCarthyite operatives, such as G-92, ruling oppressively via a regime of surveillance over a city divided into “blocks” kept deliberately separate from one another. The separation is sustained by the “No-Zone” laws, which the city's controllers are resolved to reinforce. These laws prohibit passage from any area of cityCityCITY into the “No-Zone”, cut off by an invisible and barely penetrable barrier. These constraints are designed to preserve social energy to ensure it remains centered on furthering “Master Center Love” or “MCL” (191). Barrier-strengthening is required because occasional resistance emerges, manifest in the way that some of…

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284 words

Citation: Ellis, R. J.. "cityCityCITY". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 April 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21639, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Jack Kerouac, cityCityCITY

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