Free Doctor Sax Essays and Papers

Jack Kerouac's On the Road:  Ranting of a Maniac or Precise Interpretation of Reality? Jack Kerouac's On the Road is considered the bible of the Beat Generation, illustrating the wild, wandering, and reckless lifestyle chosen by many young people of the time. Despite all of Dean and Sal's partying and pleasure-cruising, On the Road ends up being a sad and disturbing story. During all the trips, through the good times and the bad times, there is a sense of darkness and foreboding following in

Importance of Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road It is Dean Moriarty, in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, who represents the eternal flame of youth that was adopted by the rebellious youth culture of the Beat Generation. He is free from responsibility, “simply a youth tremendously excited with life…want[ing] so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him” (Kerouac 4). Just as the Greek of the Olympics, “with [the] torch…[that] ignites the pagan

The Quest For Identity In On The Road In Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’, the protagonists embark upon a long, arduous quest for human identity. Their aim is to uncover who they truly are, where they fit in the ‘scheme of things’ and what the meaning of life is. They articulate this desire by speaking, during the novel, of the search for ‘IT’, ‘IT’ being human identity. This ‘IT’ is an intangible thing; something that holds a different meaning for every individual. It encompasses all the things

A Memorable Journey Jack Kerouac's exhuberant novel, On the Road, follows a group of restless young friends criss-crossing America in second-hand cars while finding their 'kicks' in jazz, girls, drugs, and intense conversations about love, poetry, and serenity. Exposing the underground Beat lifestyle of the 1950's, Kerouac celebrates the defiance of a generation chasing the freedom promised by the American Dream while committing themselves to instinct and emotion. Sal Paradise, a struggling

Narrator's Role in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Kerouac's On The Road Over the last fifty years, since the release of On The Road in 1957, it has not been uncommon for critics to draw parallels between Kerouac’s semi-autobiographical novel and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, released thirty-two years previously. It is for certain that both the novels share many similar traits, both examine concepts of American ideals and The American Dream, both are heavily influenced by the jazz age

Michael McClure, a poet in San Francisco who was involved with the Beats said that "the world that [they] trembling stepped out into in that decade was a bitter, gray one". In his article, "Scratching the Beat Surface," he describes the time as "locked in the Cold War and the first Asian debacle," in "the gray, chill, militaristic silence,...the intellective void...the spiritual drabness". This is the world in which Kerouac takes his journeys that become the material for On the Road. Sal

“On the Road'; by Jack Kerouac is a fresh and captivating novel which follows the life of Sal Paradise as he sets to the roads of America to escape the repetition of every day life. His journeys become a quest for new experiences and a new way of living, crossing both moral and legal boundaries in search for true freedom. Kerouac uses many techniques to attempt to convey the theme of personal freedom as well as to achieve freedom of expression. Jack Kerouac applies an original, spontaneous

In Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road, the narrator, Sal Paradise offers up to us what seems to be a very optimistic view on life. He is forever singing the praises of how wonderful his adventures will be and his high expectations for the future. To Sal, the novel is defined by youthful exuberance and unabashed optimism for the new experiences that he sets out to find. A deeper look into the novel, as well as a look at some of the critics who have written on it, reveals a much darker side, a more pessimistic

Impact of Dean on Sal's Identity in On the Road In part I, chapter 3 of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Sal arrives at Des Moines and checks into a cheap, dirty motel room. He sleeps all day and awakens in time to witness the setting sun. As he looks around the unfamiliar room, Sal realizes that he doesn't understand his own identity. Identity lost, he states "I was half way across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future." He has lost the calming influence

The Spiritual Quest in On the Road A disillusioned youth roams the country without truly establishing himself in one of the many cities he falls in love with. In doing so, he manages with the thought or presence of his best friend. What is he searching for? While journeying on the road, Sal Paradise is not searching for a home, a job, or a wife. Instead, he longs for a mental utopia offered by Dean Moriarty. This object of his brotherly love grew up in the streets of America. Through the hardships