“On the Road,” by Jack Kerouac
Upon reading about the relationship between the narrator and Dean I thought about how we need people in life. Somewhat, for a given moment or time people come into your life to fulfill a purpose and then they vanish like was the example of Dean. Dean and the narrator meet because Marylou, Dean’s girlfriend, accused him with the police after a fight they had. Therefore, he had to “lam” for their apartment. Dean, being an ex-conn he was, would have ended back in jail. Hence, he needed the intervention of someone, and a good excuse as well for the help. Here’s why this is interesting to me, ironically people look for others just to fulfill a purpose and then move on like nothing ever happen. Although I understand the logic behind this, it’s quite touching to me because today people are straight forward with their intentions. For instance, when these characters meet in the bar Dean actually expresses his reality. In my own words, he is saying “Look, I can’t stay my girlfriend, I need a place to stay and I hope you can help” forget the intention with which I came to see you. Becoming a writer, forget that…… However, I also like the fact that Dean really wanted to better himself, be more intellectual considering the fact that he was in ex-conn, that was something good for that sense. This pattern repeats with Eddie, who was a free soul, and at the end became traveling buddies. Eddie ended up using the narrators clothing for warmth and eventually meets their end and Eddie vanishes.
As the story progresses to the point that the narrator is working his way to the west, I kind of thought about Lazarillo. Lazaro was trying to get to a specific point in his life and so was the narrator. Lazaro endure tribes and tribulations to make to where he wanted to go, so did the narrator of this story. Although the narrator of story did not endure the same pain Lazaro did, there is element of sacrifice that the narrator endures in order to make it to where he wanted to go. For example: he stated “I’ve been all day and into the night going up and down, north and south, like something that can’t get started.” But he continued trying just like Lazaro did until finally making it.
I like the characters in this story. They are free and wont’t be constrained by the culture or traditional thinking of the country. I agree with you that people are straight forward with their intentions because I think that people will do something on purpose. For examples, some people will interact with you not only just want to make some new friends, may be they already know who you are but come to talk to you like they didn’t know you. Some people are not honest nowadays. Most people are doing things on purpose.
I also like the way you compared with Lazaro. When I was reading this story, I also try to connect this story to all the stories we had go through before. I also feel like there are some connections between Lazaro and this story. Dean and his friend have their journey travelling to the west and just like Lazaro, who is going to different places to stay alive. Both stories are also going to different places and learned from different places and people.
On the one hand, I agree that Dean wants to better himself, he is interested in learning things. He wants to learn how to write, so he shows up at the narrator’s doorstep without Marylou. He is also an energetic people. However, I feel like Dean is crazy, which can easily affect others, especially Sal; he drinks lots of alcohol, does lots of drugs, and sleeps with a lot of different women. He is running around from one city to the next, one woman to the next.
It has been interesting seeing how all these different text and movies have overlapping themes and archetypes. For me, that’s where my interest ends. For some reason I find most of these stories REALLY boring. Maybe, it’s my age, or because i’m a girl but I found this kid to be soooooooo emo. I rolled my eyes soo hard I nearly fell over several times in this passage. I couldn’t care less about this kids journey to Denver nor the wacky characters he observes along the way.
I agree with some aspects of your comparison of Kerouac to Lazarillo but not all of them.
Kerouac, like Lazarillo, is on the road, searching fro something that he has not found in himself. He is trying to fill this void with the people he has met in his life just like Lazarillo.
While the fact that the two of them are searching for something on the road is true, the circumstances that has put the there are vastly different. Lazarillo was sold off into servitude due to the dire situation of his family, Kerouac is from a vastly different financial situation having been to a private school in his youth and leaving his studies at Colombia University when he begins his journey.
I did enjoy this story on a personal level, Kerouac and the rest of his beatnik writer friends have a beautiful style that is so fast paced it sucks me in.
Your comparison of this story to Lazarillo’s is very interesting. To me , this story is similar to Jack Black’s You Can’t Win. For instance, Sal is like Jack had lived his normal life until he met Dean. On the other hand, Jack was an innocent boy until he heard stories about Jesse James. They both wanted to look like Dean and James, and they dream about going to West because of Dean and Jack . I think Dean and Jesse James from You Can’t Win are both tricksters, because they are both not innocent, wild characters from West,who disturb normal lives of other characters like Sal and Jack.
I agreed with you H.ivey. I found the text convoluted which made it somewhat of a difficult read for me. I found myself re-reading the same section trying to understand the purpose however I keep drifting away thinking about other things. In any case, I has some connection to the Jack Black , ‘You Can’t Win’ story but unlike Jack Black’s the story was dry. On to the next reading .
Like francis and max in the movie scare crow the narrator and eddie were hitchhikers. Hitchhiking seemed very common, lawful and enjoyable in the early days. There seemed to be lots of it. But recently it is unlawful and due to the crime rates, most people wont participate in such activities. Too money seemed to have a lot of value, as only with fifty dollars the narrator was able to eat, rent rooms and pay bus fee interstate for himself with the eddie when they both hitchhiked.