"On the Road"- a success?
So much open space- mile after mile of cities, towns, Waffle Houses, and a whole lot of whatnot. There's such a feeling of freedom on a road trip, just sticking your head out the window to let the breeze of every place that passes, cover your face. So much is taken in, yet so little, you find it's hard to stop to sleep or feed yourself. You're driving to get somewhere, but that somewhere doesn't matter, all that matters is driving and letting the wind take you. Friends, yell at attractive people as you pass, Or fighting with family, arguing about who's going to eat the last piece of string cheese. It's all about the moment and what you choose to do with it. "On the Road", a novel written by Jack Kerouac, contains many such road trips during a time in life called: the beat generation. It's an extraordinary tale of two young men searching for things they don't even realize until they get to their destinations; and when they reach those destinations all they want to do is drive….
In first reading "On the Road", one might find it a touch absurd and slightly confusing. The writing goes in all directions and who is this Dean guy anyway? Upon reading the novel a second time there's this fascination with all the characters and their actions. The tale unfolds with Salvatore Paradise, called simply: Sal. Sal is a writer, in his thirties, living in New Jersey (his whole life). He becomes obsessed (it seems) with a guy named Dean Moriarty. Dean is an interesting character- a con and a womanizer; he still becomes a guy that readers would want to be pals with. Dean and Sal have an interesting relationship, but for the most part they seem like good friends. After Dean moves out of Sals apartment (after conning his way into it), he moves around, getting married and not really settling down. So this leads to Sal, out of sheer boredom, to pack some things and head out on a road trip, with no car and fifty bucks in his pocket. Off he goes on a wild adventure, coming to many stops along his way to California. From there the story gets kind of repetitive, with Sal going back and forth across the country and Dean still up to all his craziness.
Could you imagine traveling the United States in just your specially made camper and the only company you have is your pet? John Steinbeck, the author of "Travels with Charley" wrote about his 1960's road trip about visiting multiple states. "What are Americans like today?"; that was the question that started his journey. His travels began in Long Island, New York, then he followed the outer border of the United States; from Maine to the Northwest. After he traveled to the Pacific Northwest, he went to Salinas Valley in California then across Texas, and through the Deep South. Finally after that 10,000 mile journey, he made is back safe and sound to New York.This rough and long trip included: meeting new people, exploring, and visiting different states.
Similarly, Xavier and Elijah from Three Day Road go through a path of losing love and friends eventually turning to enemies. To begin, Xavier and Elijah war quickly noticed by other comrades because of their hunting skills. Xavier and Elijah grew up with a native background where Xavier doesn’t see killing as an ordinary thing to do. This is seen when Xavier is being shot at for the first time. He witnesses how close it was for him to be killed, responding, “The other side wants to kill me, and I’ve never even seen their faces” (Boyden, 33). Much like Paul, Xavier share many similarities to show guilt, shame and innocence. Xavier as well as Paul, thinking for all his comrades and there service for the war. Showing how his culture has taught and raised him to do so. War gives soldiers the main purpose to kill, while for Paul and Xavier killing a human is not morally wrong. In addition, Paul, like Xavier haves regret and shame for all the comrades and enemies that they have lost. This causes them to go into a state of anger and guilt which they cannot control. This is seen after Xavier cannot think straight after destroying a base along with enemies, Xavier proclaims, “I replay it over and over in my head so that I don’t sleep all night, pulling the pin on my mill bomb, throwing it and watching it arc until it disappears into the crater, the concussion and screams. I have killed someone now” (Boyden, 75). Images of horror replay in Xavier head after he kills a group of men. It is shown that Xavier is attached emotionally to his victims. While most soldiers are alone and cannot express their feelings, this leaves these thoughts as a burden which can lead to insanity. However, Xavier finds love during the war which gave him hope again...
“On the Road During the Great Depression” takes place during the height of the Great Depression. The depression started on October 28, 1929, today known as Black Tuesday, where $10 Billion vanished from the market in 5 hours (Give me Liberty 799). In 1930, the stocks recovered a little, but then began falling till 1933. The Market would not return to normal till 1954 (lecture 10). The crash left 15 million American out of work, which led to as many as 5 million American to go out on the bum (lecture 10). Traveling city to city just like Skaret
I agree with Kerouac in that when a person comes to a fork in the road of their life, they begin to analyze their very being in order to find their correct path. They will search high and low for a resolution to whatever dilemma they may have. Sal, Dean, and even the rest of the crew face this in On The Road. They are searching for answers, and they are searching for "IT." Sometimes a journey can leave you wanting for more. In Dean's case, he never found his exact "IT." He ran himself ragged looking for answers but they never came to fruition. But, if people are lucky, when they go on their search they will be like Sal Paradise and find what they are looking for. They will find a place in the world, a person or family to love, or their own version of the American Dream.
Sometimes a character may be pushed over the edge by our materialistic society to discover his/her true roots, which can only be found by going back to nature where monetary status was not important. Chris McCandless leaves all his possessions and begins a trek across the Western United States, which eventually brings him to the place of his demise-Alaska. Jon Krakauer makes you feel like you are with Chris on his journey and uses exerts from various authors such as Thoreau, London, and Tolstoy, as well as flashbacks and narrative pace and even is able to parallel the adventures of Chris to his own life as a young man in his novel Into the Wild. Krakauer educates himself of McCandless’ story by talking to the people that knew Chris the best. These people were not only his family but the people he met on the roads of his travels- they are the ones who became his road family.
Highway utilizes a plethora of natural diction in order to paint the unforgiving backdrop of Okimasis’ journey. He writes that the sky was “orange-rose-tinted” (Highway 3), in order to foreground Okimasis’ ardent passion to win the race. If the sky were blue, the setting may appear tranquil. However, the orange sky establishes an intensity that the scene may lack in its nonappearance. Highway also relates the “freezing temperatures and freezing winds” (Highway 12) that Okimasis must
The story begins with Jake driving on the freeway and he is stuck in a traffic jam beneath the overpass of the 101 freeway (Hollywood freeway) on Alvarado Street, at a red light. Jake is stalled in life, he values freedom but is not as free as he thinks he is. The freeway allows jake to feel the freedom of the open road and allows himself to daydream of his ideal life. You could infer Jake is a lower-middle
TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH, NO PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS, NO CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM… AN AESTHETIC VOYAGER WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD…AND NOW AFTER TWO RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE FINAL AND GREATEST ADVENTURE… TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS OF FREIGHT TRAINS AND HITCHHIKING BRING HIM TO THE GREAT WHITE NORTH… NO LONGER TO BE POISONED BY CIVILIZATION HE FLEES, AND WALKS ALONE UPON THE LAND TO BECOME LOST IN THE WILD. (Krakauer 163)
Whether you’re stuck on the 405 freeway during rush hour, on the 15 freeway heading back from a long-weekend vacation, or driving through the busy streets of Hollywood, traffic on the highways and streets of Los Angeles can often be a hassle. In Dagoberto Gilb’s short story Love in L.A., first published in 1986, the troubles of traffic are experienced first hand by our main character Jake. Jake is a common fellow with a steady occupation who is merely trying to make his way to work through the busy streets of Hollywood. As he is working his way through the piled traffic, not paying complete attention to the road in front of him, Jake crashes into the back of a Toyota. In the midst of exchanging information with the driver of the Toyota, Jake finds himself attracted to the female driver, whose name is Mariana. Jake attempts several times to ask her out for some coffee or breakfast; however his persistent attempts were not successful. The two drivers continue to exchange insurance information, however Jake not having any valid insurance gives false information to Mariana, and the two of them go their separate ways. In this short story, the author demonstrates the effect of gender roles, Marxist criticism, and new criticism in his writing.
During the 1930’s at the time of desperation and hardship people were affected by economic conditions that were beyond their control. These conditions brought about hunger, loss of homes, and lack of jobs. At the height of The Great Depression there were more than 250, 000 teenagers living on the road in America (Uys.,Lovell., 2005). Riding the Rails vividly shares the lives and the experiences of then youths who rode the rails or trains, as teenagers. Some left home to escape poverty or troubled families and others left because it seemed like it would be a great adventure. Teenagers who were new to the rails had high hopes of where their journeys would take them.
Imagine a world where everything is black and covered in layers of ash, where dead bodies are scattered throughout the streets and food is scarce. When earth, once green and alive, turns dark and deadly. A story about a man, his son and their will to survive. Within the novel Cormac McCarthy shows how people turn to animalistic and hasty characteristics during a post-apocalyptic time. Their need to survive tops all other circumstances, no matter the consequences. The hardships they face will forever be imprinted in their mind. In the novel, The Road, author Cormac McCarthy utilizes morbid diction and visual imagery to portray a desperate tone when discussing the loss of humanity, proving that desperate times can lead a person to act in careless ways.
In the Novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, survival becomes the biggest quest to life. The novel is set to be as a scene of isolation and banishment from people and places. The author uses the hidden woods as a set of isolation for the characters, in which creates the suspense of traveling to an unspecified destination near the shore. Cormac McCarthy creates a novel on the depth of an imaginative journey, which leads to a road of intensity and despair. The journey to move forward in an apocalyptic world transforms both of the main characters father and son tremendously as time progress. In particular, the boys’ isolation takes him from hope to torment, making him become fearful and imaginative. The images indicate that McCarthy’s post apocalyptic novel relies on images, particular verbal choices, and truthful evidence to how isolation affected the son emotionally and physically.
The Street, is a novel, by Ann Petry, that tells a story about Lutie Johnson’s relationship to the urban setting. Petry conveys Johnson’s relationship to the urban setting through the use of imagery, personification and selection of detail. These literary devices help not only help give a better way to explain what Johnson is going through, but lets the readers have a better way of understanding it.
Kazuo Ishiguro uses the setting of Never Let Me Go to reinforce the major ideas within the novel. To reinforce the sense of freedom Ishiguro uses driving to show that although the students of Hailsham and the cottages are now free that’s not how life has always been. Driving is shown as a time for Kathy to physically and mentally roam free, to think about the ups and downs of her life, the things that she has regretted and in a heartbeat, would do-over again. The students of Hailsham are free to wander the grounds but not leave, this is where the setting and sense of freedom within Hailsham come in to play, the perception that if they did leave and entered the forest it was practically suicide, “Once, not so long before we all got to Hailsham,
Upon arrival into the jungle of vast buildings, the first thing noticed is the mobbed streets filled with taxi cabs and cars going to and fro in numerous directions, with the scent of exhaust surfing through the air. As you progress deeper into the inner city and exit your vehicle, the aroma of the many restaurants passes through your nostrils and gives you a craving for a ?NY Hot Dog? sold by the street venders on the corner calling out your name. As you continue your journey you are passed by the ongoing flow of pedestrians talking on their cell phones and drinking a Starbucks while enjoying the city. The constant commotion of conversing voices rage up and down the streets as someone calls for a fast taxi. A mixed sound of various music styles all band together to form one wild tune.