This week, rather than having a better understanding of Sal, I was able to analyze why Dean is who he is. In his case, I believe that nurture triumphed against nature in that Dean was mentally abused as a child as a result of of his drunken father. Dean most likely feels responsible for his father’s behavior. He grew up in a chaotic environment and thus was not able to learn the feeling of trust and safety in the world. Furthermore, Dean suffers from a lack of self esteem and self worth and is unable to trust others. Therefore, he is unable to form a meaningful relationship in his life.
The threads that tie Dean’s blanket all came together this week. The reader now possesses a deep understanding why Dean never settles in one place. He does this due to the fact that he never learned how to create stability in his environment. He thrives in the uncertainties of life which he describes as the road as to not form any bond or relationship with the people or the settings around him.
Dean’s constant action and movement is a coping mechanism as a result of the traumatic incidences that came about during his childhood. He is on the road not because he wants to be a free spirit, but rather, he is on the road as to not be betrayed once again as his father did when we was a child.
In the brief flashes of Dean that we have seen so far in On the Road he has always been in the middle of conflict. And although the drama that Dean is normally in the middle of is not of the most respectable kind, for example having relations with two women at once, Sal is not only amused or entertained as anyone else might be by situations, but he is even enthralled. As we saw in his friendship with Montana Slim, Sal often looks over many of the morally wrong characteristics of the people he meets. The constant flaw in Sal’s choice of friends is a smaller representation of the fault that is seen often in humanity where “normal” people always want their lives to be weird and people with odd backgrounds always want their lives to be normal.
ReplyDeleteWhen first being introduced to Dean, his lack of actual friendship with Sal and his carelessness did not make me like him very much, but once learning of his childhood and his father my understanding of him changed. I agree that many of Dean’s actions are driven by his chaotic and difficult childhood, and his inability to settle in one place is because he has never been able to experience or even see an example of stability. He has only known chaos and living against social norm, which is reflected in many of his actions.
I agree that Dean’s untraditional and difficult childhood has lead to his instability and trust issues, but I don’t believe that Dean is a sympathetic character. Although his life is erratic, I believe that he wants it to be that way. For example, instead of choosing stable friends like Sal, he chooses friends who are only flings, such as Carlo Marx.