In his novel, On the Road, Jack Kerouac provides us a narration on the woes of being young and naïve. The narrator tells us the story of his younger self, but he places a distance between himself and his past. The narrator is reliable and truthful and through him we understand that he is not promoting the actions or ideas that he made when he was younger. Although he believed himself to be mature, the narrator points out that he cared too much about the opinion and actions of others. As shown at the end of part two, he was a sad character that tried so hard to be part of the group, but always seemed to be behind and left out. It is for these reasons that the narrator was so fascinated by Dean, a free spirited and energized boy from the West, who represented all that the narrator wanted to be. Unlike the narrator, Dean without any struggle falls into place wherever he is, the true traveler.
The characters are all looking for the experience that the narrator at the point when he is “sharing” this story now has. But the drive for life and new experience that we see in the narrator as he travels West is no longer evident in the narrator as he “shares” his story. I believe that it will be because he finds the experiences that he was so desperately seeking that he will lose himself, along with his drive for life. He romanticizes the past and looks back on it as a time of innocence and hope. And although I understand that the message of this book is not to follow in the steps of the narrator, as I continue to read, more and more do I want to.
I too feel the desire to go on a road trip as I progress through Kerouac’s novel; I also feel like reading it at our age, we are able to relate to the uncertainty of our life ahead and the endless opportunities that we still think about when we are young. A road trip is the perfect representation of the spontaneity we can experience when we are still youthful. In my opinion, Kerouac expresses a sense of power we can feel in dominating the nation by car; it is almost as if a road trip is an accomplishment. I agree that in reflecting back on his trip, the narrator no longer feels the “drive for life and new experiences” because he has already experienced all of his hopes and dreams. I also agree that Dean represents all that the narrator had aspired to be, as a carefree and fearless character that shows him what life on the dangerous side in like. I think that Dean will be both a good and bad influence on the narrator on his trip because he will encourage the narrator to live life to its fullest, but he also might get the narrator into trouble as they face the consequences of living a life without borders. As the narrator describes Dean he communicates his impulsiveness, as he refuses to live a constrained and scheduled life. Dean would say, “‘I’m hungry, I’m starving, let’s eat right now!’” (pg. 7). This demonstrates his youthful, spur-of the moment behavior in which the narrator admires. I’m interested to read further into the novel and discover how the narrator’s brotherly friendship with Dean develops.
ReplyDelete- Meagan Adler