Forces of a Generation in On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Forces of a Generation in "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac
On the Road, by Jack Kerouac is a book about the need to wander and the rejection of authority and tradition in post World War II American youth. It illustrates the ethos of the American “Beat Generation” of the 1950’s: freedom, mysticism, and individuality. Kerouac most likely wrote this book in order to provide a semi-autobiographical account of his own adventures hitchhiking around the United States as well as to provide an account and a rationalization for his wanderings and attempt to explain the forces that created the beat generation.
The plot of the novel mirrors the main conflict of the book. Sal Paradise is torn between his desires to lead the normal, traditional life pushed upon him by his family and the rest of “straight” society and his need to nomadically travel around the country like his hero, Dean Moriarty. The book alternates between episodes of Sal attempting to settle down, start a family, get a job, and his inevitable lust to wander. Sal occasionally finds happiness in stable situations but his attraction to Dean Moriarty is too strong for him to stay in one place for long. This plot is parallel to the theme of the book. The beat generation lifestyle was about a search for meaning by people who rejected most of the values of the time. They are never able to find satisfaction and are forced to continue searching, even at the end of the book.
The characters in this novel fall within two broad categories. There are the people in Sal’s life who want him to settle down and live a more standard life in one place, and the people he meets on the road who want to continue to travel with him. The beatniks Sal spends time with are epitomized by Dean Moriarty, which whom Sal worships and attempts to emulate. Dean lives a life free of burden, responsibility, compromise, and stability and for most of the book enjoys himself. Sal is pulled in the direction of Dean and the other beatniks, but is pulled to the side of constancy by those characters at the other end of the spectrum, such as Remi Boncoeur, Lucille, and Sal’s aunt, who want him to start a normal life. Sal’s interactions with these characters...