On the Road – Jack Kerouac (1957)
On the Road is the
most famous work of the Beat
Generation [1]of
writers.
On the Road is placed into America – the late forties and
early fifties if the 20th century – which is still plagued by class and racial
divides, but changing rapidly.
The main characters are based on Kerouac’s friends, many of
them prominent Beat Generation writers. Kerouac is also accounted[2]
as one of his main character – Sal Paradise.
His companion in this novel - Dean Moriarty is Neal Cassady - major figure of the Beat Generation ot the
1950s. On the Road describes dissatisfied young generation with their feelings,
ideas, experiencies – idealistic youth who yearn for something more than the bland[3]
conformity of a generally prosperous society.
In this novel appear many characters, but I have chosen the
most important for me.
Sal Paradise –
the narrator – main character. A young writer who lives in her aunt’s house in
Peterson - New Jersey – Long Island. He
loves his homeland, especially the grandeur[4]
of its landscape, the variety of its people.
Dean Moriarty –
the hero or failure – main character. A reckless[5],
frenetic[6], hyper –
energetic man full of ideas from Coloredo. He has been in and out of jail. He
is a big womanizer[7].
He has one by one wives and four children in the course of these three years.
He is a „holy goof[8]“.
Marylou – Dean’s first wife. A pretty young
blonde from Colorado.
Sal’s aunt – a tolerant, supportive and kind lady.
Throughout Sal’s wanderings she sends him money.
Camille – Dean’s second wife for whom he divorced
Marylou. Loyal Camille lives in San Francisco with her and Dean’s children.
Terry – a pretty Mexican girl. Sal’s mistress. He spends
with her fifteen days in California. She comes from a family of grape – pickers
in Sabinal and she has a small son Johnny. Terry escapes from her husband who
beats her.
Johnny – Terry’s seven year old son
Inez – Dean’s third wife. A sexy brunette who he meets
in New York.
Victor – a kind, polite Mexican man. He guides Sal,
Dean and Stan to Gregoria.
Laura – Sal’s girlfriend from Manhattan – N.Y. City at
the end of the novel.
The novel
began in the winter of 1947 in New York City. The narrator, Sal Paradise,
started to tell the story. He was depressed and bored. Reckless and joyous Dean
Moriarty, newly married, came to New York City and met Sal Paradise – a young
writer with an intellectual group of friends. Dean fascinated Sal. Dean’s
arrival “sparked” everything into motion. Sal was frenetic, hyper, and full of
ideas. Sal’s first impression of Dean was a young real perpresentative of the
West. They drank and talked until down. Sal liked Dean’s madness, eagerness, exuberance[9],
his Western spirit, different from Sal’s other friends. Sal felt like Dean was his a long – lost brother. Their friendship began three years of restless journeys
back and forth across the country with combination of bus rides and adventurous
hitchhiking and psychedelic escapades.
Sal
worked as a fieldworker in California for a while, among other things. The next
year, Dean came to East to Sal and they drove West together with more crazy adventures
ending in San Francisco that time. The winter after that, Sal went to Dean and
they travelled across the country again to New York and Dean settled there for
a while. In the spring, Sal went to Denver alone, but Dean soon joined him and
they went south all the way to Mexico City.
Perceptive Sal, who at the
beginning of the novel was weakened and depressed, gained in joy and confidence and
found love at the end.
On the Road,
in my opinion, is a novel of characters, moods, places, jazz music, lots of alcohol and drugs more than of
plot, and above all, the unceasing[10]
movement of the characters. Characters are often described with the attributes
of the place which they are from. Kerouac also compares attributes of the West
and East America. While the East is intellectual, stagnant, old, saddened and
critical, the West is passionate, young, exuberant and wild.
[1] The Beat Generation is a literary movement started by a group of
authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the
post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized
throughout the 1950s. Central elements of Beat culture are rejection of
standard narrative values, spiritual quest, exploration of American and Eastern
religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human
condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and
exploration - Wikipedia
[5] Lehkomyslný,
bezhlavý, lehkovážný, riskující
[6] Zběsilý,
bouřlivý
[7] Sukničkář,
proutník, záletník
[8] Blbec,
pitomec, trouba
[9] Veselost, bujarost, životní jiskra
[10] Neustálý,
nepřestálý
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