Let’s get a few things straight. This will be an unusual essay—not a boring, yawn-inducing academic essay which would surely cure the world of all its sleeping disorders. I am a recovering victim of academia, and this is my class, my essay. And I wasn’t born to fit in; I was born to stand out. This is my last strike in the game of life—my heart has stopped twice—and I’m not going to waste my time writing ordinary drivel.
In a warped sense, On the Road by Jack Kerouac can be viewed as a philosophical work. Instead of a supercilious, fatuous intellectual debate, let’s cut to the long-forgotten text, a book that shaped American literature, a work untouched by the depravity of modern times. Henry David Thoreau states in Walden:
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.
Thoreau further elaborates, “The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed like his contemporaries.”
Do these knuckleheads members of The Beat Generation live a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust in On the Road?
In terms of simplicity, the characters of On the Road travel light, frequently hitchhiking with the bare minimum of possessions. A pervasive sentiment is “Don’t worry about nothing. We’re all in this together.” (Page 83) The characters flit from place to place in less than luxurious accommodations from a cold-water flat (Page 4) to a “cheap hotel room I’d never seen” (Page 15) to a simple tent (Page 85).
I asked the big fat woman who owned the camp if any of the tents were vacant. The cheapest one, a dollar a day was vacant. I fished up a dollar and moved into it. There was a bed, a stove, and a cracked mirror hanging from a pole; it was delightful.
The On the Road diet, although questionable for one’s health, is quite simple. It largely consists of apple pie and ice cream (Page 13, 14, and 16), franks and beans (Page 9), and store-bought spaghetti and meatballs, bread, butter, coffee, and cake (Page 87).
Sal and Dean enjoy an unusual amount of independence in On the Road. They tend to be free of conventional romantic relationships, family commitments and loathe working in general but particularly jobs that would involve being micromanaged. “We’re really all of us bottomly broke. I haven’t had time to work in weeks.” (Page 40)
“Dean then had four little ones and not a cent.” (Page 225) and “So now he [Dean] was three times married, twice divorced, and living with his second wife.” (Page 277) This freedom, however, comes at a steep cost. Galatea Dunkel gave a scathing, hostile rebuke of Dean: “You have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your [edit: darned] kicks. All you think about is what’s hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside.” (Page 176)
These characters are also least likely to be nominated for Employee-of-the-Month.
He [Dean] only worked like a dog in the parking lots. The most fantastic parking lot attendant in the world, he can back a car forty miles an hour into a tight squeeze and stop at the wall, jump out, race among fenders, leap into another car, circle it fifty miles an hour in a narrow space, back swiftly into tight spot, hump, snap the car with the emergency so that you see it bounce as he flies out; then clear to the ticket shack, sprinting like a track star, hand a ticket, leap into a newly arrived car before the owner’s half out, leap literally under him as he steps out, start the car with the door flapping, and roar off to the next available spot, arc, pop in, brake, out, run; working like that without pause eight hours a night, evening rush hours and after-theater rush hours. (Page 8)
One of Sal’s associates, Eddie, was kind enough to get him a job, but Sal couldn’t be bothered to show up. “We found a man in the markets who agreed to hire both of us. […] ‘I like boys who like to work.’ […] Eddied showed up in the morning; I didn’t.” (Page 42) While temporarily holding down a job as a barracks guard, Sal and Remi break into the barracks cafeteria and help themselves to the unattended food. “Here, realizing a dream of mine from infancy, I took the cover off the chocolate ice cream and stuck my hand in wrist-deep and hauled myself up a skewer of ice cream and licked it […] then walked around the kitchens, opened iceboxes, to see what we could take home in our pockets.” (Page 63)
Later, while Sal is supposed to be picking cotton, while a young mother and her child are desperately trying to work the field, Sal takes on a more relaxed approach, “If I felt like resting I did, with my face on the pillow of brown moist earth. Birds sang an accompaniment. I thought I had found my life’s work.” (Page 87)
Dean’s restless, wild spirit will be tamed by no one–even Sal is not exempt from Dean’s flightiness. When Sal and Dean’s adventures take them to Mexico, Sal becomes sick with fever. While Sal’s condition deteriorates to the point where he is “delirious and unconscious”, his buddy Dean is planning his escape.
“Gotta get back to life. Wish I could stay with you. […] I’ve got to go now. Old fever, Sal, good-by.” And he was gone. Twelve hours later in my sorrowful fever I finally came to understand that he was gone. […] When I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexities of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes. (Page 276)
In terms of magnanimity, while Sal is quick to forgive, others are not quite so eager to put the past aside. “I forgave everybody, I gave up, I got drunk.” (Page 70) Despite Dean leaving Sal sick in Mexico, when Sal sees Dean at the end of the book, he isn’t angry. “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.” (Page 281) However, “Chad King had decided not to be Dean’s friend any more, for some odd reason, and he didn’t even know where he lived,” (Page 34) and “Remi would never talk to me again. […] It would take years for him to get over it.” (Page 70)
Although a strong argument can be made as to all the previous elements of living according to wisdom, trust is lacking in On the Road. One could even argue that the characters, particularly Sal and Dean, are reliably unreliable.
Nearly at the outset of the novel, Dean is described as “he was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him. (Page 6) “…[A]ll Dean was, was just a very interesting and even amusing con-man.” (Page 178) Dean continues to be described as a con-man until the end of the novel. “The holy con-man began to eat.” (Page 194)
While on a trip with Dean, Ed Dunkel marries Galatea in order to finance their way out East. Within a matter of days, “Dean and Ed gave her the slip in a hotel lobby and resumed the voyage alone, with the sailor, and without a qualm.” (Page 101).
Despite his wife being pregnant and relying on him to provide childcare, Dean decides to walk out, and Galatea criticizes him. “’I think Marylou was very, very wise leaving you, Dean,’ said Galatea. ‘For years now you haven’t had any sense of responsibility for anyone. You’ve done so many awful things I don’t know what to say to you. […] Camille has to stay home and mind the baby now you’re gone—how can she keep her job?’” (Page 176-177) These unmistakably insightful revelations were not enough to change Dean’s plans, and he vehemently pursues his unbroken series of questionable decisions adventures.
Even Sal expresses his concerns about Dean, “Where is Dean and why isn’t he concerned about our welfare? I lost faith in him that year.” (Page 155) Dean’s own family has a healthy dose of distrust regarding Dean. Sam Brady, Dean’s cousin says, “Now look, Dean, I don’t believe you any more or anything you’re going to try to tell me. […] We want absolutely nothing to do with him [Dean’s father], and, I’m sorry to say, with you either, any more.” (Page 197) Tony’s reaction to Dean summarizes the impact that Dean has on others: “For some odd intuitive reason he [Tony] became terrified of Dean and threw up his hands and drew away with terror writhing on his face.” (Page 201)
Despite vows of forever, Sal and Dean constantly run out on their romantic partners and even bounce out on each other when tough times approach. For a season, Sal is romantically involved with single-mother Terry, and they plan to reunite in New York. “’See you in New York, Terry,’” I said. (Page 92). Yet, within a day or two, Sal meets a girl on a bus. “I made the acquaintance of a girl and we necked all the way to Indianapolis.” (Page 93). Despite largely living off of Terry and her young son’s labor, Sal doesn’t feel compelled to help or support them. For when he arrives home, “My aunt and I decided to buy a new refrigerator with the money I had sent her from California,” (Page 97) rather than trying to provide meaningful help or acknowledgement to Terry. “All my life I’d had white ambitions; that was why I’d abandoned a good woman like Terry in the San Joaquin Valley.” (Page 164)
While one might be able to read On the Road as a philosophical work if one could get past the matter of trust, this point might be moot because On the Road is also a coming-of-age novel—Sal specifically calls out “the forlorn rags of growing old.” (Page 280) After the disappointment of Dean’s abandonment in Mexico, Sal is at a watershed moment and starts to pivot away from the childlike, carefree lifestyle that characterizes Dean’s lifestyle. When Sal runs into Dean on his way to the concert, for the first time, he doesn’t halt his plans—Dean will no longer derail his life, and Sal allows Dean to go his own way, and refuses to give him a ride downtown. And the consequences of Dean’s riotous ways have descended upon him, leaving him “ragged in a motheaten overcoat” and walking off alone. (Page 280) Instead of being a leaf blown about by the winds of Dean, being a reactionary to Dean’s whims, Sal is exploring a new sort of unknown territory—he is now forging his own path forward.
excellent. thank you for your analysis.