One the Road to a Term
Paper
Gioia Kelleher
INTRODUCTION
History and Background
Great Depression World War Two
1. One the Road takes place after the Great Depression and World War
Two, but before the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960’s.
They are stuck in a grey zone in American history.
B. Post-World War Two Economic
Boom
1. After the doomsday mood and
perspective of the 1930’s and 1940’s there was an uncomfortable placidity of
the late 1940’s and 1950’s.
2. But my vacation recently at
a beautiful lake was marred by the constant noise of jet skis.
Who is Jack
Kerouac and what is the Beat Generation?
It is widely considered that On the Road is partially autobiographical, though this seems
inconsequential considering that every piece of literary has to be at least
somewhat autobiographical, it is very important when analyzing One the Road to understand the life of
Jack Kerouac more so than would be required for other novels
Jack Kerouac joined the Merchant Marines his sophomore
year at Columbia University due to a disagreement with his football coach.
In 1947, after the end of World War Two, Kerouac began
his cross-country journeys in the automobile, which would later inspire the
novel On the Road. It was during
these journeys that he met Neal Cassidy who would Kerouac would base the
character Dean Moriarty of off, the second protagonist in the novel
John Clellon Holmes, a fellow author and friend of
Jack Kerouac, is best known for his novel “Go” and is considered the first Beat
author. Jack Kerouac first labeled the Beat generation in an interview with
Holmes and later quoted him an article in The New York Times Magazine "You know, this is really a beat
generation."
John Clellon Holmes is also quoted for saying "Everywhere
the Beat Generation seems occupied with the feverish production of answers—some
of them frightening, some of them foolish—to a single question: how are we to
live?"
Though The Beat were unique to their era, the
represent a communal conflict that every new generation must deal with. The
restlessness of having to balance what previous generation tells you what is
right and what you believe is right.
They were promised by their parents ant their teachers
that they would be happy if the followed the steps already created for them by
previous generation, but the history they have witnesses would tell them other
wise, so instead the tried to find their own path.
(Transition:)
BODY
I. Sal’s and Dean’s journeys
back and fourth across the United States represent their search for
Sal wants his life to be extraordinary, which is why
he is drawn to mad and counter-culturist people such as Dean. He does not want
to live the lives of his aunt or his brother; he does not believe that is here
happiness lies. He does not just want to go to college, get married, buy a
house, have children and die. He believes or at least hopes that there is more
to life than that.
C. Quotes
1. The
only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never
yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow
roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” – Sal (Part One
Chapter One)
2. “What
do you want out of life?" I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of
girls. I don't know," she said. "Just wait on tables and try to get
along." She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn.
I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do
together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned
away wearily. We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what
God had wrought when He made life so sad.”- Sal (Part III, Chapter 11)
3. “Prison
is where you promise yourself the right to live.”- Dean (Part II Chapter 3)
This quote explains Dean’s madness.
(Transition:)
II. Though their struggle and
search is honorable, what results is their restlessness and ultimately their
failure.
A. There is subtle change
throughout the novel. Sal starts his first journey across the country full of
exuberance, which is also evident in Kerouac’s writing. Kerouac starts the
novel writing in long rolling sentences, which conveys Sal’s feelings at the
time. But over time things start to change for Sal and his friends such as Dean
and Carlo Marx. They loose the excitement, and become disillusioned.
B. The sadness part of this
novel is that if anyone could have ended up happy it would have been Sal or
Dean. No one else lusted after freedom as much as Sal and Dean did. Even when
having every opportunity to be happy, it is an inherent part of human nature to
be sad.
C. One the Road is criticized for being sexist and an inaccurate
portrayal of women. Dean Moriarty at one point in the novel is going back and
forth between two hotel rooms in order to sleep with two different women,
Marylou and Camille. Though the portrayal of women in On the Road is rough, it is not necessarily incorrect. Kerouac
spends a majority of the novel commenting on the journeys and conflicts
associated only with Sal, Dean, and their male friends, but female characters
do play an important role in the novel. Kerouac does touch upon the struggle
women occulted in the
D. They realize that it is
easier to just fall in line.
E. Quotes
1. “So
in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier
watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that
rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road
going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know
by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry,
and tonight "running from one falling star to another" [Part II,
Chapter 4]. They are all reaching for this goal.
2. “…’I said, ‘Gene, that’s
the prettiest song.’
‘It’s the sweetest I know,’ he said with a smile.
‘I hope you get where you’re going, and be happy when you do.’
‘I always make out and move along one way or the other’ (Part One, Chapter Four). Right from the beginning of his journey he begins to witness everyone’s sorrow.
‘It’s the sweetest I know,’ he said with a smile.
‘I hope you get where you’re going, and be happy when you do.’
‘I always make out and move along one way or the other’ (Part One, Chapter Four). Right from the beginning of his journey he begins to witness everyone’s sorrow.
3. “the stars'll be out,
and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and
shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of
complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks
and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen
to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I
even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean
Moriarty.” I’ll figure out a way to shorten this when I am actually writing the
paper.
4. “all the time I was
thinking of Dean and how he got back on the train and rode over three thousand
miles over that awful land and never knew why he had come anyway, except to see
me” (Part V, Chapter 1) We have to experience the sadness of Sal having to
loose his faith in his hero.
As long as Sal and Dean
are on the road there is a possibility that they will find what they think will
solve all their sadness, but in the end they realize that it does not exist.
5. As long as Sal and Dean
are on the road there is a possibility that they will find what they think will
solve all their sadness, but in the end they realize that it does not exist.
6. “We saw a vision of the
entire Western Hemisphere rockribbing clear down to Tierra del Fuego and us
flying down the curve of the world into other tropics and other worlds.
"Man, this will finally take us to IT!" said Dean with definite
faith. He tapped my arm. ‘Just wait and see. Hoo!” (Part IV, Chapter III)
7. “All had their hands
outstretched. They had come down from the back mountains and higher places to
hold forth their hands for something they thought civilization could offer, and
they never dreamed the sadness and the poor broken delusion of it. They didn’t
know that a bomb had come that could crack all our bridges and roads and reduce
them to jumbles, and we would be as poor as they someday, and stretching out
our hands in the same, same way” (Part IV, Chapter 6)
(Transition:)
CONCLUSION
Summary
Clincher
