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).
I too agree that Sal’s journey is mundanely dull because Sal himself is such a complacently boring character. I like your analysis about Sal being happiest when he is away from his friends, for he seems to go through these cycles that shift between blissful excitement and vexed disgruntlement. I also agree that there are moments where Sal realizes that although geographically different, there is an overwhelmingly evident uniformity that exists throughout America. 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). Earlier in the novel he also says, “I thought of all my friends from one end of the country to the other and how they were really all in the same vast backyard” (pg.11). I feel like Sal is starting to realize that his journey is useless, for the person whom he aspired to become was the young and rebellious Dean; however, in a mundane reflection on his trip, he says “I hadn’t talked to Dean for more than five minutes in the whole time” (pg.53). I also agree that we feel somewhat bothered by Sal’s naivety where he has a “ridiculous ability to accept almost anything”. In order to become a changed man, Sal needs to find himself and establish his own identity; until then, we, as a reader remain bored as we are dragged along on his monotonous journey.
ReplyDelete-Meagan Adler