Compared to the other books that we have read so far this year in class; such as Atlas Shrugged, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and the Calvino short stories, the amount of description in On the Road is significantly different. Atlas Shrugged, for example, can spend an entire page, or even at times pages, describing a single moment. Unlike Atlas Shrugged, Kerouac in On the Road spends only brief sentences or lines for describing events that can happen over days. But we also get a larger range of time, for example in On the Road, within the first forty five pages we have covered a span of time of about six months. Although the ability of the author to portray the events, emotions, and internal thoughts of characters depends on the author’s control and use of language, both modes of description; spending pages describing moments or spending pages describing days, allow the reader further insight into the conflicts and the story lines of the novels.
Because Kerouac breaks up what we have read so far in the novel into three distinct sections; the first section during which he meets Dean while he’s still in New York, the second on his journey to Colorado, and what we have seen as the beginning of the third as his time in Denver, we have also seen the development of Sal as a character. Since his journey to Denver his own image of himself has changed. He no longer believes that he is just boy who has only ever seen the town of which he has grown up in, but instead he now sees himself as equal to the others in his group, such as Chad King and Roland Major.
I think what you have said is undeniable; On The Road has a writing style unique from any other work we have read this year. I think Kerouac describes these larger expanses of time in such a way that everything he wants us to know and feel is conveyed. I do somewhat disagree with your statement that Kerouac breaks up the work in such a way, I see those different parts as just different sections of the plot and never felt any deliberate contrast.
ReplyDelete