Going to get somewhere, or just going.
Kerouac′s On the Road

von: Gesa Giesing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION 2

2 ON THE ROAD IN EVERY RESPECT 4

2.1 IT 4

2.1.1 WHAT IS IT? 4
2.1.2 HOW IS IT ACHIEVED, OR THOUGHT TO BE ACHIEVED? 6
2.1.3 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SEARCH FOR IT 9
2.1.4 HOW IS IT REPRESENTED? 10

2.2 THE WEST 12
2.3 LIMITS 13

2.3.1 ”MAYBE WE OUGHT TO GO BACK, THOUGH?” (293) 13
2.3.2 TWO FURTHER CASES OF DUALISM 14

2.4 SOME REMARKS ON POSTMODERNISM 16

2.4.1 RACE AND GENDER 16
2.4.2 ”EVERYBODY GOES!” 17

2.5 NON-FICTIONAL BEAT LIFE 20

3 CONCLUSION 21

4 APPENDIX 23

4.1 WORKS CITED 23
4.2 WORKS CONSULTED 24

1 INTRODUCTION

What do Copernicus, Jesus, the German Green Party, and say the Impressionists have in common with Jack Kerouac? Obviously, all of them freed themselves from some prevailing belief or technique, or a similar, and introduced a new one instead. With all of them this introduction did not happen without resistance, especially not without resistance by the influential people of the respective branch. In all cases, the new idea experienced trouble to be taken seriously.

When Kerouac tried to publish his novel On the Road, subject of this essay, which he had finished in 1951, he was turned down several times before in 1957 Viking Press would eventually agree on printing the book. Among the things the novel was disapproved of were the way of life depicted in it, breaking with traditions and trespassing moral and legal boundaries, as well as the lack of a new set of guidelines that were to replace the ones trespassed. Had it previously been the introduction of a new set of guidelines (as with Jesus and the Green Party) or beliefs (as with Jesus and Copernicus) or a new technique (as with the Impressionists) that led to dislike, it was now, among other things, the alleged lack of such a set. Schönfelder (1985: 391) discusses in his essay ”Zwischen anarchistischem Protest und Eskapismus” the quality of the Beats’ behavior and comes to the conclusion that they are subjects of the latter: ”Im Endergebnis liegt eine Spielart eines romantischen Eskapismus vor.”. Starting from this I am going to show three things. Firstly, I want to illustrate that the journeys in On the Road are not as aimless as they might seem at a first glance. There is an aim the characters are heading for, hence one must not blame the novel for not offering alternatives to the ideas condemned in it. However, it will become clear that this aim, that is thought to provide happiness by a particular form of freedom, involves certain ways of behavior that do trespass both legal and moral boundaries. In ”On the Road” Asher calls the protagonists’ series of journeys a mere ”joyride” (n.d.: 2). One might indeed consider the novel a praise of unbridled hedonism and individualism. It certainly is -- to some extent. But I will secondly try to show that Sal, the narrator, is very much on the road between traditional and new ideas, i.e. that his physical movement is part of an inner movement. In the end, Sal has become aware of the dreamlike quality of his and his friends’ goal. That means that On the Road admits that the advantages of and the happiness resulting from hedonism and individualism are limited. On the Road, in the first place, does not simply rebel against the status quo for rebellion’s sake (i.e. it is more than an escape), and in the second place, does to some extent accept the impossibility of a realization of the proposed aim, at least at the time being (i.e. it is not too romantic). So my reading of the novel is the following: the journeys in On the Road are the story of Sal’s quest for a place on the margins of society. This basically is a normal and human process as a response to being exposed to two diametrically opposed options.

The two previous paragraphs have already revealed a major discrepancy. Schönfelder was talking about the Beat Generation whereas I was defending On the Road against his reproach. Indeed, many critics have not differentiated between Beat fiction and reality but have taken On the Road as Kerouac’s barely fictionalized autobiography. After the publication of On the Road, Kerouac ”was besieged with questions about the life-style he had described in the novel [...and] reporters expected him to live up to its [i.e. the portrait of Dean] image.” (Charters 1991: ix). Consequently, the third goal I have is to examine in how far this aim of On the Road permeated Kerouac’s own life, and in how far Kerouac, who represented himself in the person of Sal, succeeded with his moderate ways. I tend to say Schönfelder was not absolutely wrong after all. In 2.1 I will try to describe the goal of the novel’s protagonists. This objective is utterly closely connected with something called IT. Hence, 2.1.1 will talk about some characteristics of IT, 2.1.2 about some ways how to approach IT, 2.1.3 about the intensity of the search for IT, and finally 2.1.4 about the representations of IT. 2.2 then demonstrates, with the concept of the West serving as an example, how old values have stopped granting happiness and freedom. The West’s ambiguity insinuates the shattered reliability of traditional values and ideas. The next chapter will look at the limits of the search Sal realizes during his hunt for IT. Parallels to this movement between binary oppositions (here: traditional and new) are also to be found in this chapter. In 2.4 I will briefly highlight some thoughts that are anticipating postmodern ideas and examine whether On the Road similarly foreshadows cultural postmodernism by looking at its handling of gender and race. The closing chapter discusses the relationship between fictional On the Road life and Kerouac’s life.

2 ON THE ROAD IN EVERY RESPECT

2.1 IT

2.1.1 What is IT?

Throughout the novel the characters are struggling to find something they call IT. IT might, in a first draft, best be described as the state where pure enjoyment is possible, with the basis of such a state being liberty and understanding. Admittedly, the concept of hunting an IT strikes one rather romantic than down-to-earth. But IT is not simply the end of a ”naiv” search for a meaning in life. IT contains a few fairly concrete concepts about how life is supposed to be. And, for sure, the characters at least sense what IT must be like, even though they are not capable of wording their notion. Freedom is one part of IT. More precisely what they long for is liberty from the compulsion to justify all of one’s actions and one’s conduct. This they try to achieve by living a life in which, especially in the context of sex and drugs, they do whatever they fancy at a particular moment. But this is just one thing, which I will talk about later, and in itself not the ultimate goal. Very touching is their love for life, the intensity with which they try to live and enjoy life. ”every moment is precious.” (97). The young men in the novel (the protagonists are all male) are eager for knowledge, and eager to hear other persons’ life stories. On the Road is not politically didactic. Never are the friends’ desires connected with specific national or other political issues that were meant to be guiding lines after World War II, such as (stately imposed) anti-communism. Although they must have been felt unsatisfactory by the writers of the Beat Generation themselves, they are not explicitly mentioned as failing guidelines in the novel. The goal when doing what they feel like is neither provocation nor material addition by breaking moral and legal constraints, but not worrying about what one does. The outcome may be the same in some cases; the motive is different, though. When Rollo Greb ”played Verdi operas and pantomimed them in his pajamas”, he is far from having done something illegal or morally corrupt. But since ”He didn’t give a damn about anything” and is ”so excited with life” Dean knows that ”’if you go like him all the time you’ll finally get it.’ ‘Get what?’ ‘IT! IT!’” (127). Dean has realized that worries are imposed by society, inflicted upon the individual’s conscience by society’s expectations and traditions. Later he says that ”we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we’re not REALLY worried about ANYTHING” (134). Throughout the book the quality of being able not to worry will remain a criteria for reaching IT. For this quality enables people to enjoy (every single moment) and feel the ”ecstatic joy of pure being” (195).

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