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.
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I definitely agree with pretty much everything that you have said. The love that Sal felt for Terry was never genuine, the relationship started with both of them accusing each other of being either a pimp or a whore. They were both lonely and lost. If anything they feel in love with the idea of at least having someone else to be alone and lost with. I was not surprised when Sal decided to leave Terry.
ReplyDeleteI agree very much you’re statement that his eastern and western personas are not very different, which seems odd considering how much he has built up the western way of living. As I said in my post, he has physically been on a journey, but mentally he has stayed in the same place.
A lot of the other group members have written that they are confused and angered by Sal’s purposeless journey through life, which I feel is just a representation of our generation. We’ve spent most of our memorable lives growing up in a recession, pretty much from the beginning of middle school to now, so of course purpose and practically would be most important to us. But the generation that Kerouac is describing grew up under the prosperity of the Second World War; they had the freedom to have to no purpose. They were also growing up during the beginning of the nuclear family, when every thing was supposed to be in order, and their way of living was supposed to be their revolt against it. Seeing Sal decisions through this light makes them seem more understandable, at least to me.