Thesis Paper Post 2

Sal leaves the simple and normal life of living in suburban New Jersey to explore the wild and unruly west. Sal does so because he wants his life to be extraordinary, which is why he is drawn to people like Dean and disconnected from his brother and his family, which is shown in Sal’s declaration that “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”. His expectations for what lies ahead of him in Colorado and beyond are huge, which is seen as he departs on his first trip to travel across the United States. As Sal heads west for the first time he describes he describes his reaction as, “here for the first time in my life I saw my beloved Mississippi River, dry in the summer haze, low water, with its big rank smell that smells like the raw body of America itself because it washes it up. Rock Island - railroad tracks, shacks, small downtown section; and over the bridge to Davenport, same kind of town, all smelling of sawdust in the warm midwest sun” (I.3.3). When Sal writes “Now I could see Denver looming ahead of me like the Promised Land, way out there beneath the stars, across the prairie of Iowa and the plains of Nebraska, and I could see the greater vision of San Francisco beyond, like jewels in the night” his belief that the expansiveness of the United States as a source of hope in finding the hidden key to living happily is most clearly shown, specifically in his comparison to each city as a gem. Dean like Sal is searching for a greater meaning to life. The reader learns more of Dean’s past then they do for Sal, and this is done for a specific reason. Dean’s childhood and early adulthood consisted of two polar themes: instability and confinement. He traveled by freight car with his homeless father, only to end up incarcerated as young adult. Dean goes from complete freedom to being caged, which is why, once he is released, that Dean goes mad. As they are traveling, Dean tells Sal “Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live.” (III, 3). Like Sal, his affinity for the freedom, represented by the immense size of the United States, stems from optimism in that they can find happiness if they just look hard enough. This ideal is also the base for their counter-culturalism. Both Sal and Dean reject what was the popular idea of happiness during the 1940’s, the era in which “On the Road” was based. They embodied the discontent felt by the youths. Sal expresses his demanding need rebel from his family and tradition when he writes “Although my aunt warned me that he would get me in trouble, I could hear a new call and see a new horizon, and believe it at my young age” (I.1.17). The youths of Beat Generation, like many other generations, drank alcohol, took drugs, had sex before marriage, and traveled through life aimlessly without any goals because they had been told not to. They abandon the lives they had been told was “right” and set off on grand journeys to find out for themselves how to live. Their expectations were so high; they went mad trying to fulfill them.