Third Post

As Sal carries on with his nomadic adventure of following Dean, he starts realizing that Dean is not that loved character he thought. Dean started off being liked by everyone because he was so fun and easy going and he did not worry about the little things. The problem is, in the end, it is the little things that matter. Towards the end of their journey, Sal is brought into these sort of Anti-Dean conversations in which everyone has something bad to say about Dean or they have a list of complaints about him that they want to get off their chest. Mary Lou is a good example because out of everyone, she would be the one people thought would stay by Dean’s side, but even she loses interest in his unsettled life, as well as the fact that she is somewhat of a nymphomaniac and puts her physical desires before her emotional ones and even considers leaving Dean for Sal at one point. Another example is when Galatea and Camille and everyone else confront Sal and tell him that Dean is no good for him, and anyone who sticks around Dean and is loyal to him gets hurt, because Dean is incapable of prioritizing correctly and he is selfish with what he wants because he does not care who he throws under a bus to get it. It gets complicated for Sal though because he has a passion for Dean. He enjoys being with Dean and living like him. This is a problem because Sal starts to take Deans personality qualities and becomes someone people won’t like in the future because, like Dean, they’ll get tired of his selfishness and inability to put others before himself when necessary. The treatment of women has been touched on before, but it can be a reoccurring example because Sal learns to be this player with the women from his observational learning with Dean in which Sal sees it works, Dean gets women, so if he does the same then he will get women as well. In the end, Dean’s old friends leave him and it becomes Sal and Dean against the world. This is somewhat of a good thing for Sal because he finally has the quality alone time with Dean he has been yearning for since the beginning and now, instead of following him around, they make plans together and even decide to go Italy. That beautiful plan for their future is of course destroyed by Dean being careless again and wasting all his money and coming up with another scheme to go to Mexico. This is an eye opening trip for Sal because on this journey is where he finally realizes how much of a selfish person Dean really is. After Sal gets Dean out of trouble by saying he’s his “brother”, Sal is proud to be able to say that, and realizes he loves Dean in a brotherly way. It is nott until later though that Dean leaves Sal in Mexico incredibly sick so he can go and chase a girl back to the states, and what is sad is that even though Sal sees the true carelessly evil nature in Dean, he can’t help but want to stay by his side.

Part Three

This section introduces the idea of dilemmas and internal conflicts. Previously, Sal was thought to be a devoted writer who only sought inspiration yet craved for the grandiose idea of freedom. As the story travels deeper, Sal struggles with the want for “kicks” and the romanticized freedom of the open road and the reality of having a more stable and settled life. However, Dean further seduces Sal into that freedom and spirals him down into problems of commitment later on. In a more general view, Sal is the struggle between the Beat generation and the former right handed generation.

For some time afterwards, Sal was able to separate from his “alter ego” and had been celebrating Christmas with some relatives in Testament, Virginia. Dean later shows up with Ed Dunkel and a new girl named Marylou after having abandoned Camille, his second wife, and their newborn baby, Amy, in San Francisco. Now this act alone would have been an outrage to all the right handers who believe that family is one of the most important responsibilities. Not only is Dean sleeping with multiple women, he is rejecting his duty as a father. Not only had he abandoned what he should have been taking care of, but he throws himself upon Sal and expects him to do what he wishes – (which he does). Although Sal makes it seem as though he is upset about Deans sudden appearance – "now the bug was on me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty." –  he still allows himself to be swept off to the road again.

Their first stop is New York where they meet up with Carlo and party some more. At this point, it’s clear how these parties go against societies standards and how all of these “beat” up degenerates are looked down upon by the right handers.

Next, Dean tries to push Sal into sleeping with Marylou but Sal declines. This reaction of Sal’s would actually have received a thumbs up from society because Sal refused to have premarital sex with a somewhat unknown girl. Dean, on the other hand, basically attempted to give away his girl as if she were some item he possessed. His actions are what define the Beat generation in every aspect. Free flowing sex and sharing what you “own” are very hippie like ways to think and “love for everybody” is not taken likely as it is clear how often these polygamous relationships occur.

Later on, more drugs are exposed to them when they travel to Algiers and stay with a morphine-addicted Old Bull Lee and his wife Jane. Once back in San Francisco, Dean leaves Marylou to be with Camille. During a conversation between Marylou and Sal, she states "Dean will leave you out in the cold anytime it is in the interest of him," Dean plays his so called “friends” like a deck of cards and uses them whenever it suits him. He has not consideration for the feelings of others and just does that which satisfies him. 

Third Post

      On the Road, like Howl, provides uncensored insight into the lives of the Beat Generation. As Dean and Mary Lou’s relationship grows bland, Dean asks Sal to have sex with her in order to see how she is with another man. What ensues is a brutally awkward situation that leaves Sal and Mary Lou feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable. Dean, as usual, does not give the experience much thought. This is yet another example of his tendency to objectify the women in his life. Throughout the novel there is abundant consumption of alcohol and drugs. Sal describes these parties as a temporary escape that always leads to a melancholy feeling in the morning. He also writes that he admires Dean’s quest to keep moving and search for “IT”, his ever-elusive conclusion about the world. 

      Sal writes that Dean seeks this clarity in music, drinking, and sex. When listening to a live Jazz musician whom he calls ‘God’, Dean sweats profusely and shakes with passion. He explains to Sal that the man in front of them has grasped the meaning of “IT”. Dean admires ‘God’ for having reached a spiritual nirvana, and continually tries to explain to Sal what he means by his search for “IT”.  Dean tells Sal, “...the point being that we know what IT is and we know TIME and we know that everything is really FINE.” (p. 197). The idea of understanding the world and placing faith in chaos brings comfort to Dean; however, it also makes him forget his worldly concerns and logic. 

      When traveling with Sal, Dean never changes the bandage on his injured hand. Sal describes the bandage as growing dirty and floppy. He writes, “By now Dean’s thumb bandage was almost as black as coal and all unrolled” (p. 231). Dean’s lack of concern for his own injury represents his detachment from his own well-being. He spends all his energy and thought chasing the invisible “IT”. As Ginsberg wrote in Howl, the madness in Dean is slowly destroying him. In his pursuit of clarity, Dean seeks true freedom from societal constraints. He soon learns, however, that the constructs of society have great power over the individual. 

      Over time, Dean and Sal begin to sink into a maddening haze of drugs and alcohol. Sal describes drinking “sixty glasses of beer” (p. 233) and later retiring to the toilet and going to sleep. He writes that he is “embryonically convoluted among the rubbishes of my life, his life, and the life of everybody concerned and not concerned.”(p. 233). At this point in the novel, Sal has become deeply mixed into Dean’s madness and unrelenting quest. He has reached a level of numbness and carelessness that he can no longer escape. The melancholy feeling he earlier described as coming the morning after a party has now begun to set in permanently. Sal writes, “What difference does it make after all?- anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what’s heaven? what’s earth? All in the mind.” (p. 233). 

Third post

Since we understand the notion that Sal and Dean are attempting to escape life, we begin to analyze what is it about life that seems to be so unattractive to these two. Evidently, as any human would, Sal and Dean seem to be running from something that must have hurt them in the past. Such a thing could be classified as an event, situation, or problem that they both faced and could not overcome and, in the end, they were probably outdone by the something that was causing them grief and despair. Individually, the reader knows that Sal has faced a nasty divorce which has left him scarred, so scarred that he was too afraid to ever settle down again due to his fear of heart break. On the topic of Dean’s past, it is not as clear as to what causes Dean to hate the idea of settling down as much as Sal but there are several clues that help shed some light for the reader. It is not as obvious for the reader however to piece together the reasons as to why Dean would be terrified at settling down in one spot. There are several clues though, that help identify the problem that Dean sees with relating to time during a journey; Dean has his own philosophy behind the concept of time: “They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there — and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see. But they need to worry and betray time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls really won't be at peace until they can latch on to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expressions to fit and go with it, which is, you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flits by them and they know it and that too worries them no end.” When one worries about time during their pilgrimage, they seem to forget what really matters which is for them to enjoy the trip itself and not stress themselves out about the tiniest things. However, if you already know that your pilgrimage is to come to an end, then you must build a schedule around that time interval in order to do everything you want to do within those limits. However, if you continue to run along this road without thinking of ending, then you can forget about the stressful factors that come with time and you can do everything that you wanted to do without feeling the pain of worry.  

Third Post for Term Paper

Similar to the first characteristic of the road lifestyle, the third characteristic is the ability to shirk off irresponsibility without consequence. Sal, Dean, and the rest of their misfit gang of nomads and vagabonds, take absolutely no responsibility for anything that they do on the road. This immaturity and irresponsibility extends to their relationships with women, their friendships with each other, and their regular everyday fiscal responsibilities.  Dean, as mention in the previous paragraphs, has a tendency to be incapable of commit. Dean gets his girlfriend, Camille, pregnant.  Dean knew that the implications of fatherhood were emotional and fiscal commitment to his child and the child’s mother. This frightened Dean, but instead of facing it head on like a real man should and would, he run away. He abandoned his pregnant girlfriend and their child to continue on living a free spirited lifestyle. Even though, he was suppose to pay child support, he never kept a steady job or even attempted to pay the bills.  Yet Camille made no effort to force him to pay the money, and seemly let him go scot-free. Kerouac proving the point through Dean, that men can easily and without consequence, shirk their responsibility, while females are stuck burying the burdens of their mutual mistakes. During this period of time, Dean ran off to find Mary Lou, his first wife. He traveled on the road with her for several months, under the pretense that once they return to Camille the relationship would be over. Mary Lou was so desperately in love with Dean that she did not care that he was using her as a mechanism to avoid irresponsibility. Then when Dean returned Camille, took Dean back into her life without question, even though it was clear that he had cheated on her.  Sal has little money while he is on the road, and he has to attempt to make some income. He first gets a job as a waiter, which Dean put his neck out on the line for Sal to get, and Sal does not even show up to the first day of work. Then Dean becomes a policeman; he then gets drunk on the job and accidentally puts the American flag on upside down. This mistake gets both Sal and his friend fired from his job. Then Sal becomes a cotton picker, the work becomes to difficult for him and he feels inadequate and he quits. Even though his attempts to sustain his own income is weak at best, he is able to live off of his aunt and uncle hard earned wages. Sal, like dean, is able to avoid irresponsibility and still live life to the fullest. Finally, both Sal and Dean, alienate friend from their inability to keep promises. Sal promises his friend, Remi, that he will be on best behavior when his Remi’s dad arrives. Instead of keeping to his promise, Sal gets drunk using Remi’s dad credit card and embarrasses Remi and his Dad inside a very reputable restaurant.              

Comment to Chow's Post

I like the fact that you use the literal road and travel as a metaphor for responsibility. Sal clearly is not happy with his stable, boring life with a wife and a job, having to put food on the table and taking care of himself and his woman, and so the idea of just taking off and going somewhere unknown in the perfect way for him to run away from his duties. He doesn’t know where he will go next or who he will encounter, but he knows that he doesn’t have anyone to worry about but himself, which gives him comfort and eases his mind.

Term Paper Blog 2

After choosing to leave his wife and put his career on pause, Sal ventures off to follow Dean across the country to see what he would do next. Sal ends up following Dean to Denver, and although Dean is not there a long time, Sal still enjoys his time there. Dean always finds a way to get lost in one place and, with very little money or resources, is able to carry on his nomadic lifestyle from one city to the next. This makes it very hard for Sal to follow him, and so sometimes Sal is stuck with Dean’s entourage, one may say. This entourage involves characters such as Carlo Marx, who Sal absolutely falls in love with because of his vivid personality and his desire to party and drink and meet women, which is just what Sal is looking for to find his new personality, or the personality he thought he never had which may just be lost within.  This is another reason why Sal follows Dean. Dean has met interesting people in his life that compliment his way of life. These people are somewhat mad, just like Dean, and can even be categorized as other lost souls as they party and drink their way through life. All of Dean’s friends, the other hitch-hikers, and even all of Sal’s old friends have something in common when it comes to this journey. They all have the ability to show Sal something new, something unknown to the young writer who is looking for inspiration to find his true meaning and go back home content with his discovery and finally start writing again with the passion he started with.

Sal realizes he is not always in Dean’s presence, but it is as if Dean had a pre-made path for Sal to go on. This path has twists and loops which Dean has shortcuts to and so he can avoid them and keep going with his life, but for Sal all these unexpected stops and people are new pieces to the puzzle of his life. Each person has something new to bring to the table. Whether it is partying, women, a job, or even being someone who Sal does not want to associate with any longer after the first encounter. Every person is a different experience, a different acquisition to Sal’s soul search so Sal can pick and choose which qualities he enjoys seeing in others so he can mold his personality to fit that and become the best person he believes he could be. In a way this is bad because Sal is not being true to himself and doing everything he wants to do, but he conforms to the group ideal, and since he likes this group, he changes himself to adapt to their lifestyle and he keeps following Dean to meet new pieces to his soul puzzle. 

Term Paper- Part 2

     In 1990, Carolyn Cassady published her memoir Off the Road, which describes Neal and Jack’s adventures from the female perspective. In the first chapter, she writes, “Raised in fear and reverence for the prevailing social code of the Thirties and having led a sheltered, restricted, existence, I was amazed... that there were men who dared to live like the characters in my books and movies.” (p. 1). This line captures the initial charisma and wonder that Dean often exudes. It also touches upon the Beat Generation’s refusal to conform. Carolyn Cassady’s perspective sheds light on how Dean was pushing boundaries, and also classifies what made him so attractive to Sal. 

     The members of the Beat Generation were also known to press society's limits beyond a blatant rejection of conformity. In On the Road, Dean and his gang often purposely defy and challenge all forms of authority. Dean makes it around the West by stealing cars and gas whenever possible. Kerouac alludes to several of Dean’s encounters with the law, and first refers to him as “a young jailkid shrouded in mystery” (p. 1). Not surprisingly, when Sal and Remi get jobs as guards, they spend the night partying with the noise-makers and attempting to steal food. Although Sal is not initially sure about their actions, Remi assures him that “President Truman said... We must cut down on the cost of living” (p. 64). Sal often plays the role of an outside admirer in the novel; he idolizes Dean and his lifestyle but is not yet ready to take it on for himself. The gang’s continual challenging of authority brings them further away from the societal ‘norm’, and is yet another reason why they shocked the generation. 

     The contents of On the Road caused a great deal of controversy. Like its literary counterpart Howl by Allen Ginsberg, On the Road had references to drugs, alcohol, and sex that were questioned by society. Howl was tried in court for obscenity and nearly faced censorship; with the help of these two literary works, the Beat lifestyle was taking the world by storm. Howl, which was largely inspired by Kerouac’s On the Road, begins with the line “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by/ madness, starving hysterical naked” (p.1). Arguably, the ‘madness’ Ginsberg refers to as having destroyed the best minds of his generation is the same ‘madness’ Kerouac uses to classify Neal Cassady and the gang. Ginsberg also mentions Denver, where Dean and Sal often meet up in On the Road. Ginsberg writes, “who journeyed to Denver... who/ came back to Denver & waited in vain... who/ finally went away to find out the/ Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,” (p. 17). Once one has become familiar with the lifestyle portrayed in On the Road, one can also understand Howl with far more clarity. For this reason, On the Road gives a valuable backdrop to the classic Beat novels. 

Part 2 of Term Paper

Since it now has been proven that there exists some form of madness within Dean and Sal, “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”, we can move onto the idea that there seems to be a desperate attempt by both to appease this sickness that gnaws at them. The solution, though not permanent, is their constant push to moving forward. Though, we can recognize that it does not get rid of the illness entirely it seems to be the temporary antidote for these two characters:  

“Sal, we gotta go and never stop going 'till we get there.'
'Where we going, man?'
'I don't know but we gotta go.”

The road is there escape from life. As all humans do, we age and fall victim to the idea of “responsibility”.  However, there are those who are afraid of falling in line and accepting their fate as normal adults and try anything to leave this notion of normality behind. Also, because these kinds of people are a minority of society, the loneliness causes them to go insane since they have very few others to speak with about their thoughts. Such people include Sal and Dean who were fortunate enough to find each other and were able to find the mystical power of healing which lies within the road. That is why both of these characters are so attracted to the road; it allows them to escape the responsibilities that tie them down to a life of boredom and inaction. Also, with the increasing number of responsibilities, the amount held by an individual can help determine hold old that individual is. The more chores, the older the person is. Therefore, as rational human beings, Sal and Dean wish to remain young as long as possible and, on the road, they can remain as young as they wish since time has no meaning while they are traveling back and forth across the nation. “And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotuslands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven. I could hear an indescribable seething roar which wasn't in my ear but everywhere and had nothing to do with sounds. I realized that I had died and been reborn numberless times but just didn't remember especially because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly easy, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance of it. I realized it was only because of the stability of the intrinsic Mind that these ripples of birth and death took place, like the action of the wind on a sheet of pure, serene, mirror-like water. I felt sweet, swinging bliss, like a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein; like a gulp of wine late in the afternoon and it makes you shudder; my feet tingled. I thought I was going to die the very next moment. But I didn't die...”

Part two term paper

The second characteristic of the “road” lifestyle is the ability to shirk responsibility without consequence. The best part about doing something capricious and immoral is not getting caught afterward. The allure of doing something bad and not getting caught is the one of the primary factor for people to continue engaging in nefarious activities. To glorify this nomadic lifestyle, Jack Kerouac made Dean Moriarty untouchable. His bad deeds came almost explicitly without consequence.  Dean Moriarty was the master of irresponsibility and immaturity, and Sal was slowly influences by the action of Dean towards all of the women in his life. Marriage is, of course, an extraordinary commitment. It requires the understanding, by both parties, of monogamy and care, both fiscally and emotionally. Dean Moriarty in the beginning of the novel had a beautiful wife named Mary Lou. She was the envy of all of Dean’s friends, and she was madly in love with him. Later on in the novel, Dean decided to cheat on Mary Lou with a girl named Camille. He kept them both in the same hotel, in different room. Dean would travel from one room to the other, sleeping with each girl and then leaving immediately after to see the other. Not only did Dean go on for several months without getting caught, his friends actually condemned him for it. They idolized his inappropriate and hurtful behavior toward women. They talked about it in great detail, and to continue the ridiculous trend of glorifying the emotional abuse of women, they actually philosophized about it together. Dean and Carlo Marx decided while discussing one night that it was the right thing to do. Then, when Dean was finally caught cheating, both Camille and Mary Lou actually degraded themselves and forgave him. A second example of Dean incredibly unpunished irresponsibility was his abandonment of his daughter and wife. Camille, after dating Dean for a while, got pregnant out of wedlock. Dean married her, and stayed with her during the entire length of her pregnancy. Then barely a few months after his daughter was born, he left. He realized that he was bored of married life, and that he missed his ex-wife, Mary Lou. So Dean hitchhiked, and made his way back to Mary Lou, and even though she even that he abandon both his wife and child, she took him back. He left Camille without a penny, and he was never punished for it. Then, when he came crawling back to Camille after Mary Lou came to her sense, and realized that she could never truly have all of Dean, she left him. Camille then took Dean back after he cheated on her, and abandoned her and her child. Jack Kerouac made the female character moral weak, to make the male character seem superior. Also by making the female character’s weak, it made it easy for Dean and Sal to get away with their actions, because they knew that no matter what they do, the females feel that they “need” them, so they take them back.