Sal's Continued Obsession with Dean

      In my opinion, this week’s reading of On the Road was the most entertaining thus far. Not only were we able to see a transition in settings between the first part and second part of the novel, but we also saw more aspects of Dean’s characters than in the previous readings. Because the other group members touched on nearly everything from the last chapter of the first part of the novel, I will mostly analyze events from the beginning of the second part. 

      At last, Dean comes back into the picture. We are back in New York for the holiday’s and we get to see Sal obsess more and more over Dean’s brilliance. I could not be happier with this change in the plot. After all, Dean is the most interesting character in the work and for this reason, I can honestly say that I like what I am seeing from Jack Kerouac in this part of the novel.

      Although Felipe discussed a variety of connections between this past week’s lecture and On the Road, I definitely have a few other ideas that I would like to share. First of all, I would like to say that I believe Dean exemplifies the typical man in post-World War II America. In class we talked about the 30,000,000 young Americans that escaped from “society” and set up their own “rules” and eventually became what we know as hippies. Well, Dean is exactly that. Dean’s lifestyle is characteristic of that of a hippy. Moreover, I believe that Sal is caught in between his admiration for Dean and the institutions of family and church. 

      Throughout the novel, we have seen Sal desperately trying to become part of the west. The whole point of his time “on the road” was to reach this unconquered territory and become more like Dean. We see Sal trying so hard to be cool as he goes to parties and gets trashed and tries to pick up girls, but he does not come even close to Dean’s character in terms of popularity and overall perfectness. 
      One of the major problems with Sal’s attempt at becoming part of this new American lifestyle is his involvement with the institutions. The most obvious of these is that of the family institution. Sal still lives off his aunt and he would not make it to the west in the first place if it were not for his family’s financial assistance. Moreover, Sal also needs to cooperate according to the institution of the Church which he struggles to do when he practically begs for anything he can have sex with. Evidently, Sal has a lot of issues when it comes to fulfilling his dream of essentially becoming Dean. 

"I was off on another spurt around the road"

      When Sal mentions, “everyone goes home in October”(104) I feel that he is really focusing on the end of summer. He is describing the same feeling we all get when the summer ends and the school year starts. The period of time when we have the freedom to stay out all night and we don’t have any responsibilities, such as homework or applications, beckoning us back home, is ending. And for those living with seasons, those feelings of the end of summer are matched by the external world. The leaves change and the sky gets grayer, and we can no longer walk around in shorts and flip-flops. Instead it is we have to wear jackets and pants, and some people unwilling to accept the change in season will actually refuse to wear warmer garments and wait until the last second to admit they need them. For Sal specifically, the end of summer marks the end of the nights he could sleep outside on the lawns of bus stations or riding on the backs of pickup trucks. Once it becomes October, the night begins to get colder and those living up north know that the first freeze is soon. It is now physically be too cold for Sal to continue traveling; or at least too cold to continue traveling in the way he had before.

      Chapter fourteen marks the conclusion of the first part of the novel. Sal is now back home and in a completely different situation from the one in which was before. Instead of being in a hut in California living with a dysfunctional couple comprised of a gold digger and a thief his is with his family and surrounded by reasonable people. And yet his still held captive by the pull of Dean. Within his reasoning of deciding whether or not to go with Dean he sees the Christmas tree, the presents, and smells the roasting turkey, and hears his relatives talking in the other room and still he decides to go with Dean. Still he decides join Dean as if he had learned nothing from his last experience. Although this seemed unreasonable to me at first, the more I though about it the more it made sense, specifically the part about Sal listening “to the talk of the relatives” (115). Every holiday that I have spent back in New Jersey after moving to Florida; seeing my cousins and my brother who was enrolled in NYU before we moved, the harder it is to try to relate to them. I actually found it reasonable for Sal to decide to go with Dean because I don’t think he was ready to be home.

The Answer Brings Forth So Many Questions

      Okay, Sal is in New York and things are all different, he fawns over Dean, and Dean can't keep it in his pants, but none of this is important. Our book got mentioned in the last lecture and I don't know about you guys but my perspective has definitely changed. This entire time I have been reading this story and saying over and over that it was really a commentary on the setting, or a presentation of the setting, but I have still been reading it like it was all about the story when I should have been reading it for its message. What I'm picking up from the last lecture is this book is all about showing the reader all these different aspects of American society in a time where it is changing rapidly. While I think we have all picked up on the different faces of society Sal observes (as well as the fact that Sal is an observer, not a character) I definitely had not embraced the idea that this was Kerouac showing us moving history. Sal is boring, but he's supposed to be boring, this book is a documentary and we shouldn't expect the camera man to have a personality.

      This then lends itself to answering the question I persistently propose: Who is the main character? At this point I would have to say it's American culture, or the setting. The focus of the story is Kerouac's observations- the changes in American society, Sal is just there to give him an excuse to show it to us. And Dean... Well, Dean is there to ensure that the story has at least ONE interesting character.

      This also means that there is no hope of Sal changing; he will forever be the boring hitchhiker who has a creepy obsession with the legendary Dean. But I think there are more important implications here, like does Kerouac want us to read this like a book? Does he want us to pay attention to characters and plot points? Did he want us to realize this was an educational story and ignore the lesser things? I would think so, but he spends so much time dealing with characters and plot points that it was actually debatable as to what the focus was. I think we're supposed to read this story like a book but I also think Kerouac gives the reader a bit too much credit. I think he assumes that everyone will pick up on what he is trying to present but I don't think he realizes that not everyone will read a book and instantly see that it's not about the story. I'm hoping that either as the book continues Kerouac brings the real story closer to the reader, or maybe that reading it as a documentary will make it more interesting.

The Four Seasons in Effect

        This week’s reading proved to be quite interesting as it provided a reflection and deep revelation about Sal’s character. I realized that similar to The Stranger, Sal is cycling through the four seasons transitioning between phases from his life.

        In the beginning, with his hopelessly optimistic dreams of ultimate freedom and happiness, Sal exuberated spring’s green hues blossoming with its innocent joy. Summer took its hold while Sal was on the road with Sal. This experiment allowed Sal to soak the warm insights and knowledge that Dean had to offer which inevitably destroyed him through his sharp turn metaphorically and literally in fall as he was extremely troubled and consumed exemplified through his experiences with Terry and her son.

        Sal was nearing winter as his body was decaying with the stench of alcohol; however, there is a sudden transition in the middle of this week’s reading. To my liking, Part Two begins with the hopeful and innocent Sal that I once admired. In a sense, I believed Part Two to be second coming of Sal and can be identified as a rebirth. It is apparent and a key factor to Sal’s state of mind that his family is the center of his unique and individual spring.  I was happy to see that he had redeemed himself from the junk filled environment he placed himself in earlier in the novel. 

        Although relieved this week, my body was also experiencing levels of anxiety due to the sudden reappearance of Dean. Sal states "the bug was on me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty..."; however, Dean is not a bug to Sal, but rather a parasite. When he nears Sal, Sal becomes a different person addicted to wild exuberance and abuses its power. Sal, like myself realizes this, but feels pressured to join Dean on a second road trip which frustrated me to no extent. People as manipulatable as Sal need trust their gut feelings and take a stance against anything that threatens their psychological state.

        Unfortunately, Sal goes against his inner most feelings and the vicious cycle has just begun all over again. First, quite timid and quiet with innocent dreams of marrying a girl, Sal will again most likely become an angry drunk holding his body hostage losing the purity that separates him from the rest of the pack in the novel. I predict that once again unfortunately that Sal will be dominated by sex, lust, and rage. Truly, I hope I am wrong and the cycle will not be stimulated as I do not want to endure another round of Sal’s self destruction; however, I have learned that people will continue to make mistakes without realizing the future consequences that they will have to face.

“Isn’t it true that you start your life as a sweet child believing in everything under your father’s roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life” (Meagan Adler)

        As Sal “haggardly” (pg.97) stumbles through the “inky night” (pg.96) on his journey back home, we unquestionably doubt if he will ever be able to become the Dean-like figure he so desperately wishes to be.  In worshipping his “God” (pg.105), Dean, Sal “sheepishly” (pg.105) follows him on his second attempt to escape the societal restrictions that force conformity and ultimately lead to the failure of himself becoming the individual that he sees in Dean.  Sal is captivated by Dean’s rebellious individualism in which he is unworriedly able to abandon his family back home for Marylou because he rejects the familial institution.  Sal craves the road life of the mobile Beat generation because he feels as if he is trapped in the “whiteness of the tomb” (pg.98), restricted by the institution of his own home.  Although mentally Sal longs to break free from society and become one of the sheep that follows the rebellious youth into Dean’s world, I am not sure if he has what it takes to remain apart from the societal institutions, for I think that he has already failed as an individual.   Sal augments our doubts about him being able to break free from society when he says, “This can’t go on all the time-all this franticness and jumping around.  We’ve got to go someplace, find something” (pg.108).  This shows us that Sal has been manipulated by society to a point where he feels the need to be complacently bound to societal institutions, such as a wife and family.  I feel as if Sal will always be that “ghost” (pg.97) he tries to run away from.  A powerful part of this week’s reading, where Sal sees society for what it really is, is when he says, “Isn’t it true that you start your life as a sweet child believing in everything under your father’s roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life”  (pg.97).   Sal conveys the grotesquely dark force of the societal institutions that relentlessly pull at the individuals who try to escape. I think that he realizes that he is trying to escape an inescapable distorted world that will haunt him and make him a ghost, whether he is in the east or the west.  Sal dreams of becoming this changed person to escape the nightmares of his life in which he sees himself conforming to as he remains trapped under a societal roof.  He sees the “semi-respectable walking hobo” (pg.97) on the fringes of society and feels the need to rush back home because he does not want that to be himself.  As he naively wanders back on a second journey, I think that Sal again will be threatened by the fringes of society and frantically come back the mundanely dull ghost he left as.  

Sal's Destruction of the Novel

If there is anything that I have gotten from the last few readings of On the Road, it is that Sal’s character has few motives. Essentially, Sal is only motivated to travel to the west and become western (whatever that means) and he is also motivated to become a replica of Dean. Throughout most of the previous readings, we have all noted that Sal’s character is always admiring Dean for every little thing that he does. Moreover, although we do not really see Dean much in these last couple of chapters, it is evident that Sal is striving to become more like Dean. For instance, Sal’s adventures to San Francisco in pursuit of picking up women exemplify his attempt at becoming more like Dean. Sal became used to seeing Dean with multiple women at the same time and he wishes that he could do the same, but in reality, he cannot even get one women to be with him.

A few weeks ago, in part of our group discussion, we argued about whether Sal would be the main character or if Dean would eventually take over. I believe that the last few chapters have suggested that Sal will indeed take on this role because of his central involvement in the plot. However, I believe that the novel is more about what Sal is describing than about Sal himself. In other words, I believe that Jack Kerouac is making an attempt at communicating to the reader the literal experiences that one can encounter when “on the road”. So far, the entire novel has been Sal telling us about this one time that he went hitchhiking. Unfortunately, I think that if this continues to play out, the novel is going to become really really boring. The author could easily have made the novel more interesting by creating a plot where we would see more interaction between Sal and Dean. In reality, all that the audience (at least in our group) is interested in is Dean Moriarty. 

Although I wish that there would be a different main character in the novel, as of right now, it is still Sal, which means we must wonder how the rest of the novel will play out. What will the west eventually bring to Sal? In my opinion, it just looks like Sal is moving backwards. Lately, as Ari noted, he has basically become a complete idiot and has not done anything productive. Furthermore, I do not see any real development in the horizon and I fear that Sal’s stupidity will continue in the future readings. Please Jack Kerouac, find a way to make this more interesting. 

What Does Sal Want?

       Sal is an observer, I think this is something we have agreed upon. He exists to observe and to allow Kerouac to describe the setting in the way he wishes. Up to now, that is essentially Sal’s purpose in the novel. It's never explicitly stated but I think we can presume that Sal is human, and being a human he has desires... right? Doesn't he? He must... right? 

       Then what are they? What does Sal care about? I want to say he has a desire to write but it seems that staring at Dean is more important than writing. The only real interest he has shown is in women, and in showing that interest he tends to be a pretty sexist dude. Most recently we see Sal get close to Terry and jumps to saying that she is his, seeing as she is the girl he is closest to at the time. I could get in to how sexist Sal is in this instance in particular but I think I've explained my view that this is representative of the setting more than anything, and plus I think Meagan will have mentioned it for me already. The point here is that not only do I think Sal hasn't really been characterized enough, I barely consider him a character anymore. I see no motivations in him- no desire- nothing. 

       Anyways, I just wish the novel would spend less time “on the road” and more time in the character’s minds. Well no, in Dean’s mind, because Dean is all in this novel in comparison to Sal. The few hopes that I have left in Kerouac to make Sal a more interesting character are slowly beginning to shatter. In my opinion, it must be only a matter of time before Sal has some sort of experience that changes the novel entirely. I must admit, however, that I do enjoy watching Sal fail in becoming more like Dean. Other than being amusing, Sal’s character is just constantly getting wrecked for different reasons which is one of my favorite parts of the novel. I just want to jump to Dean so I can read about a bank robbery or some shit rather than the Adventures of Sal or Lack Thereof.

America

      When I first started reading On the Road I thought the novel was going to be about an amazing, life-changing journey across the United States. Although Sal's narration and description of the setting around him have been beautiful, he hasn’t changed much. Although Sal is physically on a journey, mentally he has stayed in the same place the entire time. 

      Sal is not a narrator who decidedly gives his own opinion, but does give amazing descriptions of the settings around him, from which a lot can be interpreted. But what I have not been able to infer from Sal’s narration is whether or not a he actually likes America. What I have noticed the most in Sal’s narration is that it is when he is traveling and away from his friends, and never in one place for too long, that he seems to be in love with the U.S. But during the sections of the novel that we have read so far, it is when he is staying with his friends that he is most unhappy, the sections of the novel such as the time he has spent in Colorado and Mill City. During his time in Mill City he claims at one point that he has begun “to realize that everyone in America is a natural born thief". But during the time he is travelling from Mill City to L.A. he describes the “Magic names of the valley” unrolling around him. He has this fascination with America, and it is understandable, being that it is only one country encompassing the cultures of many. And yet there are similar characteristics among every one of the characters that he has described in the novel. I believe that Sal understands this, that even though he is three thousand miles away from his home, there is still the element of being American that connect those such as Remi and Dean to those like his Aunt and he understands that this is neither good nor bad.

      Sal has a ridiculous ability to accept almost anything, from his living conditions to those with whom he decides to become friends with. This is also evident in his lust for every female he runs into, lust he describes as “A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl who I loved”(pg. 82).

Disappointment

     This week my perspective on the novel transitioned dramatically. At first, I admired Sal’s child like spirit. His innocent dreams of exploring the “promised land” rejuvenated the meaning of life and was a nice shift from Atlas Shrugged. His vision of the people and places that surrounded his made Earth seem like a real live heaven through his use of adjectives. All objects that he observed were incredible, the sweetest, and the best. I even took compassion with that naiveness that he possesses because his righteous dreams were one in a million.

      Reading the next two chapters pained me. In the narrative, Sal becomes an old miserable drunk who cannot take care of himself, let a lone a family whom he comes to adopt as to fulfill his longing for a sense of closeness. His constant moving from the east to the west, and now from the west to the south represents his idea that the world is a stale, disgusting, and dull place to live. He is under the belief that place creates all his troubles, when in reality, it is Sal that morphs his surroundings, and therefore destroys place. There is one common factor that Sal has yet to realize is the source of all his troubles. Sal destroys himself through his constant restlessness, anxiety, and tendency to turn to substances like alcohol and drugs to ease the pain. As they are only temporary tools of medication, Sal needs to learn to face his problems head on rather than continue to move and hitch hike from one location to the next.

      The most pathetic scene as of yet is when he decides to go back to New York, the place he hated most. Eastern values at first for Sal included analytical, static, and critical ideas whereas Western values symbolized wild exuberance. However, the values of geography have not changed in the short amount of time that Sal has journeyed, but rather, Sal mistakenly believes that maybe the East can once again provide him with the ‘exuberance’ that he hoped to west could instill in him.

      No longer to I have any sympathy for Sal’s character. Once an innocent dreamer, to now becoming a helpless fool I feel as if On The Road is taking a turn for the worse. I do hope that Sal’s once naive personality takes hold of his body once again because as of right now, there is no Salvation for his character in my eyes.

“We got off the bus at Main Street, which was no different from where you get off a bus in Kansas City or Chicago or Boston- red brick, dirty characters drifting by, trolleys grating in the hopeless dawn, the whorey smell of a big city” (Meagan Adler)

        In this week’s reading, I found myself almost bothered by Sal’s mundanely dull journey that continuously seems to have no purpose; Sal’s innocent naivety defines his malleable character, which gradually molds him into a dispirited “haggard ghost” (pg.76) in his lonely “sad and ragged” (pg.77) life.  Furthermore, as we are exposed to his relationship with Terry, we begin to question the genuineness of his so- called love; does he have true feelings for Terry or does he persuade her in a time of desperate vulnerability to accompany him in one of the “loneliest and most brutal of American cities” (pg.79)?  Sal augments our dubious thoughts on the authenticity of this love when he says, “A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world” (pg.74).  In my opinion, Sal needs to find himself and a purpose to his presently purposeless journey in order to find his true love.  As we follow Sal into the “grapy dusk” (pg. 72) of California, we realize that he aimlessly wonders through a continuous cycle of blissful happiness and hopeless dejection.  As he looks up at the “dark sky” (pg.89) he is painstakingly reminded that he has been a failure to himself in his journey, for he remains a nobody. Sal is at that awkward point in life where he is no longer a dependent high school boy but also not an adult.  He is trying to transition into this unknown person he so desperately longs to be, but is still dependent on people like his aunt for money because he continues to be an idle and purposeless boy.  Apart from its geographically distinct persona, is the west really so different from Sal’s life in the east?  We see points where Sal questions his own decision to take this journey on the road and begins to undermine his future as a hopeless wanderer; he says, “We got off the bus at Main Street, which was no different from where you get off a bus in Kansas City or Chicago or Boston- red brick, dirty characters drifting by, trolleys grating in the hopeless dawn, the whorey smell of a big city” (pg.76).  In making these somewhat insightful broad generalizations Sal has moments where he sees the mundanely dull journey that has yet to change him.  Constantly finding himself back on the never-ending “bloody rood” (pg.90), Sal undeterminably begins his journey back home, where his mundane life will continue to define him as a complacently dull nobody.