On the Road by Jack Kerouac

‘On The Road’ by Jack Kerouac

Context

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922. He had a private and Catholic early education, and he got a football scholarship to Columbia University, where he met Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs. Kerouac quit school his sophomore year and joined the Merchant Marine, starting the travels of his youth which would become the basis of On the Road, his second and most acclaimed novel. On the Road, published in 1957, became the most famous work of the Beat Generation of writers. It is known to be an account of Kerouac's ("Sal Paradise") travels with Neal Cassady ("Dean Moriarty"). The main characters are based on Kerouac's friends, many of them prominent Beat Generation writers like Allen Ginsberg ("Carlo Marx") and William Burroughs ("Bull Lee"). With his long, stream-of-consciousness sentences and page-long paragraphs, Kerouac sought to do no less than revolutionize the form of American prose. According to Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac typed the first draft of On the Road on a fifty-foot-long roll of paper.

On the Road gave voice to a rising, dissatisfied fringe of the young generation of the late forties and early fifties. It was after the Great Depression and World War II and more than a decade before the Civil Rights movement and the turmoil of the '60s. Yet, though it has been fifty years since the events in On the Road, the feelings, ideas, and experiences in the novel are still remarkably fresh as expressions of restless, idealistic youth who yearn for something more than the bland conformity of a generally prosperous society.

Other works by Jack Kerouac include his first novel, The Town and the City,The Dharma Bums (based on his explorations of Buddhism with friend and poet Gary Snyder), The Subterraneans,Big Sur,Visions of Cody (a densely packed, more experimental account of the events in On the Road), and Visions of Gerard (based on Kerouac's brother and childhood in Massachusetts). Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of 47.

Summary

In the winter of 1947, the reckless and joyous Dean Moriarty, fresh out of another stint in jail and newly married, comes to New York City and meets Sal Paradise, a young writer with an intellectual group of friends, among them the poet Carlo Marx. Dean fascinates Sal, and their friendship begins three years of restless journeys back and forth across the country. With a combination of bus rides and adventurous hitchhiking escapades, Sal goes to his much-dreamed-of west to join Dean and more friends in Denver, and then continues west by himself, working as a fieldworker in California for awhile, among other things. The next year, Dean comes east to Sal again, foiling Sal's stable life once more, and they drive west together, with more crazy adventures on the way at Bull Lee's in New Orleans, ending in San Francisco this time. The winter after that, Sal goes to Dean, and they blaze across the country together in friendly fashion, and Dean settles in New York for awhile. In the spring, Sal goes to Denver alone, but Dean soon joins him and they go south all the way to Mexico City this time.

Through all of this constant movement, there is an array of colorful characters, shifting landscapes, dramas, and personal development. Dean, a big womanizer, will have three wives and four children in the course of these three years. Perceptive Sal, who at the beginning is weakened and depressed, gains in joy and confidence and finds love at the end. At first Sal is intrigued by Dean because Dean seems to have the active, impulsive passion that Sal lacks, but they turn out to have a lot more in common. The story is in the details.

Characters

Sal Paradise - The narrator, a young writer.

Dean Moriarty - The hero, a reckless, energetic, womanizing young man from Colorado who has been in and out of jail.

Carlo Marx - A good friend of Sal and Dean's, a brooding poet who is sensual and energetic.

Marylou - Dean's first wife, a pretty "dumb" blonde from Colorado.

Ed Dunkel - A tall, affable friend of Sal and Dean's. Not too bright, he'll do anything Dean says.

Galatea Dunkel - Ed Dunkel's serious, disapproving newlywed wife.

Remi Boncoeur - An old friend of Sal's from prep school. Remi, a flamboyant Frenchman, is a petty thief and gambler, constantly in debt but extravagant and sometimes gallant and generous.

Lee Ann - Remi Boncoeur's sulky girlfriend.

Sal's aunt - She is tolerant, supportive, and kind. Sal lives at her house in Paterson, New Jersey, and Long Island. Throughout Sal's wanderings, she sends him money.

Chad King - Sal's friend from Denver; young, slim, blond and soft-spoken. He is interested in philosophy, anthropology, and pre-historic Indians.

Tim Gray - A friend of Sal's in Denver.

Roland Major - A friend with whom Sal lives briefly in Denver. Major is a Hemingway-esque writer who is scornful of "arty" types but snobby himself, often talking to Sal about Europe and fine wines.

Camille - Dean's second wife, for whom he divorces Marylou. Loyal Camille lives in San Francisco with her and Dean's children.

The Rawlinses - Ray and Babe, brother and sister, Denver friends of Sal's group. Babe, "an enterprising blonde," is Tim Gray's girlfriend.

Rita Bettencourt - A waitress in Denver whom Dean sets up with Sal. According to Dean, she has a "sex problem." Sal tries to prove to her that sex is beautiful, but he fails to impress her.

Old Bull Lee - "Long, lean, strange and laconic," a long-time friend of Sal and Carlo, the teacher of their group. A traveler, writer, and junkie.

Elmer Hassel - A lost friend whom Sal and Dean seek everywhere they go.

Jane Lee - Bull Lee's sarcastic wife, a benzedrine junkie.

Lucille - A married woman in New York whom Sal wants to marry for awhile.

Denver D. Doll - A Central City friend, whom Sal sees all over town. Eager Denver D. Doll shakes hands and makes sometimes-incoherent pleasantries ("Good afternoon" at midnight, "Happy New Year," etc.)--from morning to night, a caricature of an official.

Terry - A pretty Mexican girl with whom Sal spends fifteen days in California. She comes from a family of grape-pickers in Sabinal, has a son, and is trying to escape a husband who beat her.

Rickey - Terry's wild, drunk, happy-go-lucky brother whom Sal meets in Sabinal.

Ponzo - Terry and Rickey's friend, a manure-seller who smells like it. Big and eager to please, Ponzo is in love with Terry.

Johnny - Terry's seven-year-old son.

Hingham - Sal's friend in Tucson, Arizona; a shy writer who lives with his wife, baby, and mother.

Slim Gaillard - A friend of Dean's in San Francisco, Slim goes to jazz joints and adds the suffix "orooni" to everything he says.

Roy Johnson - A friend of Sal's who chauffeurs Dean and Sal in San Francisco..

Inez - Dean's third wife, a sexy brunette he meets in New York.

Stan Shephard - An enthusiastic friend of Tim Gray's who goes to Mexico with Dean and Sal. Stan has a controlling grandfather he is trying to escape.

Victor - The kind, polite Mexican man; Sal, Dean, and Stan's guide in Gregoria.

Part I, Chapters 1-2

Summary

The narrator, Sal Paradise, starts to tell the story: he, with his "intellectual" friends, was a young writer in New York City in the winter of 1947, depressed and bored, when Dean Moriarty arrived in New York City. Dean has just gotten out of reform school, just married a pretty young blonde, Marylou, and they have come to New York City for the first time, from Denver. Sal heard of Dean before from Chad King and was intrigued--Dean used to write Chad from jail, asking questions about Nietzsche. Sal and his friends go to see Dean and Marylou in a dumpy flat in Spanish Harlem. Dean comes to the door in his shorts; he is occupied with Marylou, and he has to make explanations to her. Dean is frenetic, hyper, and full of ideas. He speaks formally, in long, rambling sentences. Sal's first impression of Dean is that he is like a young Gene Autry, a real representative of the West. They drink and talk until dawn.

Dean and Marylou are living in Hoboken, and Dean has gotten a job in a parking lot. They fight, Marylou sets the police after him, and Dean goes to where Sal lives--his aunt's house in Paterson, New Jersey. Marylou has left Dean and gone back to Denver. Sal and Dean talk about writing in intellectual jargon that Sal admits neither of them truly understand; Dean has come to Sal and his friends because he wants to be a writer and a "real intellectual." Sal likes Dean's madness. It is decided that Dean will stay with Sal for a while, and that they will go West together sometime.

Sal and Dean go to New York for a night out, and Dean and Sal's friend, the energetic young poet Carlo Marx, meet and hit it off, talking non-stop. Sal doesn't see them for two weeks; they talk night and day, about writing and poetry and madness, of the people they know--who will all collide in the near future. Sal feels something starting.

Spring arrives, and everyone is getting ready to go somewhere. At the bus station, Carlo and Dean and Sal take pictures in the booth before Dean, proud wearing a new suit, leaves to go back to Denver; his "first fling" in New York is over. Sal gives a rhapsodic description of Dean's abilities as "the most fantastic parking-lot attendant in the world." Sal promises himself that he will follow Dean west soon. He likes Dean because of his exuberance, eagerness, uneducated intelligence, and what he sees as his Western spirit, different from Sal's other friends, "intellectuals" or criminals. Sal feels like Dean is a long-lost brother. Also he admits to being interested in Dean as a writer needing new experiences.

In July, with fifty dollars, having written half of a novel, Sal heads west.

Consulting many maps and books, he plans to take Route 6 the whole way--a winding red line from Cape Cod through to Los Angeles. To do this, he has to go to Bear Mountain, forty miles north. He hitchhikes there and ends up on a winding mountain road in pouring rain, with few cars passing, cursing himself for being a fool. Finally a couple picks him up, and the man suggests a more sensible route; Sal knows he is right. He has to go back to the city--where he started from 24 hours ago. Anxious to get west as fast as possible now, he spends most of his money and takes a bus to Chicago the next day.

Commentary

On the Road is a novel of characters more than of plot, of moods and places, visions described, and above all, the unceasing movement of the characters. It is all centered on the hero, Dean Moriarty. Here the scene is set, with descriptions of Sal's life before Dean, and foreshadowing of their sadder, older lives after this period. In the first sentence, Sal says that he has just split with his wife and recovered from a serious illness. He feels depressed and tired, stagnant. Dean's arrival and personality spark everything into motion. Sal has always dreamed of the West, where he has never been, and Dean, the personification of Sal's dream of the West, arrives. The theme of ideas of the East--intellectual, stagnant, old, saddened, and critical--versus ideas of the West--passionate, young, exuberant and wild--starts here; characters are often described with the attributes of the places which they are from--or rather, Sal's idea of that place (See descriptions of Dean and Marylou). Both Dean, "Western kinsman of the sun," and the West, for Sal, are new horizons, wild, open and free.

In the first-person narrative, we can only see, think, and feel through Sal, further filtered by the lens of memory, and Kerouac sticks to this thoroughly and admirably. Sal thinks in verbose descriptive impressions and long, rambling sentences, like the way Sal and Dean and Carlo talk, and dense paragraphs often over a page long. The sentences attain a breathless quality, skillfully embodying the excitement and motion of the characters and events (for an example, see the 150-word sentence describing Dean working as a parking-lot attendant). In a more sober interpretation, the language is sometimes elegiac, suggesting Sal's nostalgia for a past that is irretrievably gone.

Sal describes his friends as thoroughly and truthfully as he can, and seems to also depict himself truthfully, sometimes self-deprecatingly. He is definitely the writer, the observer, often a little behind or at a distance--perhaps to see more clearly: when Dean and Carlo Marx meet, Sal falls behind them at once, watching them. He's also late in starting west, and can't hitchhike and travel as easily as he thought, having to take the bus all the way to Chicago. The others, he imagines, are already there, having great fun. Sal's appreciation of Dean's reckless impulsiveness and seeming ease is sharpened by his desire to have these qualities himself.

The opening section also introduces an important characterization of Dean as a "holy con-man": the combination of veneration and truthful perception is a tone central to the entire novel. The idea of a trickster hero-saint appears in many mythologies, such as the Monkey King in Chinese literature. In On the Road, this idea is humanized and complex, applying to both Dean and the events of the novel. Sal knows that eventually, Dean may disappoint and desert him, but he loves him anyway and goes along for the adventure. Dean is saint and con-man at once. It's a kind of faith Sal is describing, making reason and rationality irrelevant. Similarly, the adventure may later prove to be a hollow sham, but for this moment, it is grand.

Part I, Chapters 3-5

Summary

After stopping for a day and night in Chicago, where he walks around and listens to some bop music, Sal takes the bus to Illinois, and from there, hitchhikes to Davenport, Iowa, where he sees his much-dreamed-of Mississippi River for the first time. After standing on a beautiful but empty crossroads until dusk, Sal decides to try where the big trucks pass by the gas stations. He's in luck, and a garrulous truck driver picks him up. Sal enjoys the ride, sitting up high in the cab and yelling back and forth with the truck driver. The truck driver blinks his lights to signal another truck driver behind them, and Sal switches trucks at Iowa City: another driver just like the first. Finally, Sal's going west fast. The second driver drops him off in Des Moines. Sal tries to get a room at the Y, but they're full, so he ends up in a grungy hotel by the railroad tracks, where he sleeps all day. At sunset, he wakes, exhausted, with a strong feeling of disorientation: for about fifteen seconds, he has no idea where he is, or even who he is.