ON THE ROAD by JACK KEROUAC

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Analysis by Angelos DOGANIS

 

 

1957

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Character list is at the end of this page

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Summary:

 

Part I:

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Sal Paradise is a writer living with his aunt in New Jersey, Eastern America. One day, he is introduced by his friend Chad Kind to Dean Moriarty, who was born in the Wild West. Dean is a crazy, excited and beat fellow who motivates Sal to travel West with him.

 

Sal and Dean go to New York, where they meet Carlo Marx, a young poet and a very good friend. Sal feels something is starting. When spring arrives, Carlo and Dean leave first for Denver, promised by Sal that he would follow. That he does in July. However, his first attempt is no success and he travels forty miles only for coming back to point zero.

 

Some time later he tries another route and has new adventures. He is exhausted but keeps pushing forward until he reaches Denver. There, he meets new people and friends, namely Chad King, Carlo and Dean, Roland Major and the Rawlins (other friends), Marylou and Camille (Dean's two girlfriends), as well as Rita Bettencourt (a girl Dean introduces to Sal). Denver is subject to unforgettable memories for Sal, as he spends great moments of night life and fun with everyone.

 

Later, everyone decides to go to San Francisco.

 

Sal arrives at his old friend Remi Boncoeur's place in Mill City, outside of San Francisco, and moves in. He finds work, meets Remi's girlfriend Lee Ann and sometimes visits San Francisco for night life. All seem to go well for him, but the situation gets worse. Lee Ann and Remi are constantly fighting, money is tight and Remi loses the last of it at the racetrack. Remi asks the two of them for just one favor: his stepfather is visiting and he wants to give a good impression to him. Thus, he asks for Lee Ann and Sal to at least act like his girlfriend and best friend. They agree, but Sal blows Remi's plans by arriving to the dinner drunk and late. On top of that, Roland Major shows up drunk too. The friendship between Sal and Remi ends. Sal decides to go back East.

 

He gets on a bus to L.A., where he meets Terry, a pretty Mexican girl. They fall in love with each other and sleep together at a hotel.

 

Then, they want to go to New York together, but Sal only has twenty dollars. They hitch to Bakersfield for work (picking grapes). Terry then suggests that they go to her hometown, Sabinal, where they can at least live in her brother's garage. In Sabinal, Sal meets Terry's brother Rickey, their friend Ponzo, and Johnny, Terry's seven-year-old son. The next morning, Sal, Terry and Johnny go to the vineyards and cotton fields and rent a tent. Sal goes to work picking cotton but does not earn enough. It also gets too cold for them to stay any longer, so Terry goes back to her family and sets Sal up in a neighbor's barn. She brings him meals and they make love a few times, but Sal starts missing his life on the road. They have to say goodbye.

 

After some adventures on the road, Sal is home in New York again.

 

 

Part II:

It is Christmas and Sal is celebrating the holidays with his Southern relatives in Testament, Virginia, when Dean arrives on the doorstep with Marylou and Ed Dunkel. Sal is on the road again. New adventures on the road await him.

Later, Dean and Sal go to Birdland to see George Shearing, a blind jazz pianist, play. They are both astounded by the pianist's performance. Dean even says Shearing is God.

 

It is then time for Sal to go West with Dean and his friends. Before they leave, the group stays at Carlo's place for awhile. Carlo tries to ask them all serious questions about what they are doing (and what they have done to Camille, Galatea and Lucille), but gets nothing but giggles for answers.

 

They finally get on the road and pass through Washington D.C. On the way, they are charged by the police for driving too fast. In Louisiana they stop at Old Bull Lee's house, where they stay for a while. Later, the group splits and Dean, Sal and Marylou say goodbye to everyone. They're off to California.

 

New adventures and experiences on the road again, until they stop in Tucson at Sal's friend Hingham's house to borrow five dollars. They leave again and reach San Francisco, where Dean leaves Sal and Marylou in the street and rushes off to Camille. Marylou and Sal stay in a cheap hotel, but Sal realizes that Marylou has no interest in him. She goes off with a wealthy man the second night, but gets with Dean again. Sal prepares to go home: he is sick of them. The three part, feeling slightly hostile towards each other.

 

 

Part III:

In the spring, Sal goes to Denver, but feels lonely. He spends the night with a rich woman he knows, and in the morning she gives him money to go to San Francisco.

 

He finds Dean living in a house on Russian Hill with Camille. But in the morning, Dean and Camille have a terrible fight. Camille throws them out. Dean explains to Sal how he went to kill Marylou and broke his thumb, but ended up asking her to kill him. Then, Sal suggests that they go to New York, and then Italy. They also decide to search for Dean's father, but stay in San Francisco a little more. They go out to a jazz joints, and enjoy the night life. They leave the day after.

 

They are on the road once again, with crazy adventures, until they arrive in Denver. At a restaurant the tension arises between the two friends after Dean claims Sal to have become older. Sal is mad. They reconcile short after. New adventures again.

 

At one point they stop at Dean's friend Ed Wall's ranch. They don't stay for long and leave.

They reach Chicago after driving extremely fast.

 

In Chicago Dean and Sal spend some night-time on the streets and jazz places, always with the same excitement. After that they take a bus to Detroit and spend some time.

 

Back in New York, Dean meets Inez and wants to marry her. They have a child together. Meanwhile, they get short on money and the plan to go to Italy is canceled.

 

 

Part IV:

It's spring again. Sal has some money from selling his book to a publisher, and decides to go West again. For the first time, he will leave Dean in New York and go alone. But Dean doesn't really fit in New York. Meanwhile, he tells Sal that he got a letter from his father, who is now in prison in Seattle. Then, Sal leaves New York.

 

On the bus he meets Henry Glass, who has just been released from jail. He reminds Sal of Dean a little. In Denver, he hits in Babe Rawlins' backyard with Tim Gray and Stan Shephard. Stan has heard Sal is going to Mexico, and wants to go with him. They are getting ready to go when they learn that Dean has bought a car and is coming to join him. Sal understands that Dean has gone crazy again. Dean arrives rapidly in Denver. The next afternoon, Dean, Stan and Sal say goodbye to their friends and head south.

 

Once again on the road, this time accompanied by Stan. They continue south and stop in San Antonio to take Stan to a clinic because a flying bug bit him. They leave again after having fun for a while.

 

They go through new adventures on the road. In Gregoria they meet Victor, who provides them with marijuana and leads them to a whorehouse. An unforgettable night is spent there. When it ends, the three friends leave and say goodbye to Victor.

 

The journey continues as they discover more about Mexico and its people. They finally reach Mexico City, where they are amazed by everything. One day, Dean wakes Sal up and tells him he finally got the divorce with Camille and is now going back in New York, leaving him and Stan behind.

 

 

Part V:

Sal relates that Dean made it in New York, reassuring Inez about the divorce. He then got on a bus to San Francisco and went back to Camille. Sal, back in New York now, has met Laura. When Dean hears that they are planning to move to San Francisco, he says he will come get them himself. But he arrives five weeks in advance. Sal has to abandon him and goes with Laura and Remi Boncoeur. Sal and Laura can't go yet. Dean takes the train back to San Francisco.

 

When the sun goes down, and Sal looks over the river to New Jersey, he keeps thinking of Dean continually.

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Themes:

 

- Admiration: Sal admires Dean's madness; Dean admires George Shearing playing jazz.

 

- Alcohol/Drugs: Night life in many cities (parties); Victor's marijuana. However the consequences are nausea and ill-feeling. (Dean is unable to move and speak, and has nightmares and huge love deficit over Marylou when he smokes marijuana on Divisadero)

 

- Criminality: Dean steals cars and has spent 5 years in prison; Dean's father is in prison; Henry Glass was in prison before he met Sal.

 

- Death vs Life: Sal's dream where he is pursued by Death. The consciousness of death haunts him, but he also sees death as a state of eternal bliss, just like in a mother's womb. In life, all madness is not enough to experience that bliss.

 

- Dissatisfaction: the Beat Generation is generally dissatisfied. All the madness is not enough for them, and bore is their worst enemy; dissatisfaction in women who suffer from their unforgivable attitude.

 

- Freedom: freedom on the road, in parties. Need to escape from post-war reality and live in ecstasy. Freedom in poetry and jazz as well.

 

- Friendship: Sal understands Dean and is there for him. Dean cries when they fight, and he feels awful too.

 

- Jazz: jazz joints Dean and Sal visit at night. Symbol of freedom and timeless bliss, even religion for Dean (Shearing = God).

 

- Madness: Dean's overexcited character bringing him closer to madness. His way of driving is a relevent proof to that. Madness often goes with freedom.

 

- Men vs Women: ill-treatment of women by Dean and his friends, who do not even care. Men want to have fun without coming up to their responsibilities --> immature character and weight for women who have to clean up for their mess (which takes a respectably strong will).

 

- Poetry: Carlo Marx and Roland Major find in poetry a means to express their momentum.

 

- Sadness: Sal sees sadness everywhere in America. All this madmen are also partly sad to him.

 

- Sex: sex with Camille, Marylou, Beverly among others, Dean never stops. Sal also experiences that. Sex is a "normal", recurrent activity for stimulus and forgetfulness. However it has one bad side effect: children (and responsibility), which slow down Dean in his trips.

 

- Time: a fearful enemy for Dean and Sal: time puts a limit to their bliss. The parties and illicit activities play a role also in stopping time; Sal is upset and offended when Dean says he's grown older: to him, this is a big insult.

 

- Violence: Camille violently throws Dean and Sal out of her apartment. Dean has driven her extremely mad (" 'You're a liar, you're a liar, you're a liar!' "); Dean is ready to kill Marylou (because of the effects of the marijuana) with a gun he gets from one of his friends. He also breaks his thumb by hitting her brow; violence also seen in a bar in Denver between Ray Rawlins and an Argentinian tourist "just" because they looked each other.

 

- West vs East: Dean and Damion dislike each other: "Damion came. Damion is the hero of my New York [=Eastern] gang, as Dean is the chief hero of the Western. They immediately took a dislike to each other."; West is equivalent to wilderness and beautiful infinite landscapes, while East is less exciting.

 

Some Important Quotes:

 

- "sex was the one and only holy and important thing in life"

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- "Everything was so crazy"

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- "The last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once for all"

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- "[Dean and Carlo] were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining"

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- "L.A. is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities"

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- "I wanted to get home"

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- "I laughed and laughed. Gad, I was sick and tired of life."

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- "I had my home to go to, my place to lay my head down"

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- "This was the new and complete Dean, grown to maturity. I said to myself, My God, he's changed."

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- "but now the bug was on me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty and I was off on another spurt around the road."

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- " 'Mankind will someday realize that we are actually in contact with the dead and with the other world, whatever it is' " (Old Bull Lee)

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- " 'Hup! hup! Here we go. Look out' [Dean] yelled at a motorist, and swung around him, and dodged a truck and bounced over the city limits."

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- "all these women were spending months of loneliness and womanliness together, chatting about the madness of the men."

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- "have you ever dug windows? now let's talk about windows. I have seen some really crazy windows that made faces at me, and some of them had shades drawn and so they winked."

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- "These romantic old broken-down Frisco brakemen live sad but eager lives of their own."

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- " '[Dean] sure is a crazy one', she said. 'Sure reminds me of my husband that run away. Just exactly the same guy. I sure hope my Mickey don't grow up that way, they all do now.' "

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

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Characters:

 

MAIN:

- Sal Paradise (narrator)

- Sal's aunt

- Dean Moriarty

- Carlo Marx

- Ed Dunkel & Galatea Dunkel

- Marylou

- Chad King

- Camille & Amy Moriarty

- Roland Major

- Ray & Babe Rawlins

- Tim & Betty Gray

- Remi Boncoeur & Lee Ann

- Teresa (Terry)

- Elmer Hassel

- Roy & Dorothy Johnson

- Rita Bettencourt

- Lucille

- Denver D. Doll

- Old Bull Lee & Jane Lee

- Big Slim Hazard

- Hingham

- Ed Wall

- Inez

- Stan Shephard

- Victor

- Laura

 

OTHERS:

- Eddie

- Montana Slim

- Mississipi Gene

- Slim Gaillard

- Tom Saybrook

- Damion

- Ian MacArthur

- Rollo Greb

- Mr Snow

- Alcatraz & Sledge

- The Banana King

- Jimmy

- Mrs Carter

- D'Annunzio

- Tom Snark

- George Shearing

- Rickey & Johnny & Ponzo

- Margarina

- The Ghost of Susquehanna

- Hyman Solomon

- Rocco/Rocky

- Walter

- "Okie"

- Mad Buick

- Henry Glass

- Sam Brady

- Beverly

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