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The Beat Generation

On the Road is a novel by Jack Kerouac published in 1957 that is considered a defining work of the post-war Beat Generation. It is based on Kerouac's travels across the United States with his friend Neal Cassady and others. The novel follows the journeys of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty as they travel seeking experiences that are passionate, alive, and true to the present moment. It captures the spirit of restlessness of a generation dissatisfied with social norms and desires for new experiences. The autobiographical novel had a profound influence and inspired readers to explore life on their own terms.

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Alyssa Ermino
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71 views2 pages

The Beat Generation

On the Road is a novel by Jack Kerouac published in 1957 that is considered a defining work of the post-war Beat Generation. It is based on Kerouac's travels across the United States with his friend Neal Cassady and others. The novel follows the journeys of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty as they travel seeking experiences that are passionate, alive, and true to the present moment. It captures the spirit of restlessness of a generation dissatisfied with social norms and desires for new experiences. The autobiographical novel had a profound influence and inspired readers to explore life on their own terms.

Uploaded by

Alyssa Ermino
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Alyssa Ermino

Title: On The Road


Author: Jack Kerouac
Literary Period: The Beat Movement
Genre: Novel

On the Road was become active to the rhythms of America in


New York City in 1957 by the American writer Jack Kerouac.It is based on the
travels of the author and his friends across the United States. The novel was
all about jazz, sex, drugs, and the desperate hunger of a new generation for
experiences that are passionate, elated and alive to the heartbreaking
potential of the present moment. Jack Kerouac was not immune to the charms
of the American dream.

On The Road is the central novel of the Beat movement, and


forms the prose counterpoint to “Howl,” the quintessential Beat poem written
by Kerouac’s friend Allen Ginsberg. As a story of journeys, the novel can also
be seen as a postmodern rewriting of such classic literature of journeying as
The Odyssey, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and the Canterbury Tales. During this
period before the social disaster of the 1960s,the novel revealed a growing
dissatisfaction with the comfortable status that many young Americans had
felt.

The novel take down the four cross-country journeys of two


friends; Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, they are the fictional alter-egos of c
Kerouac and the Beat writer Neil Cassady, and their cast of friends,
acquaintances, wives, and lovers.

The novel begins with Sal relating how he came to know Dean.
Dean had recently been released from a rehabilitation school , and had
traveled to New York to participate in the city's cultural and intellectual life. Sal
became friends with Dean. Dean is a crazy man with a desire for drink, drugs,
and women that challenge his lust for life. Dean's energy sets off Sal's own
desires for adventure and exploration. They traveled extensively across the
United States for around three years. As the novel closes, Sal sits by the bank
of a river, thinking of the great American landscape that he has seen in his
journeys, and thinking of Dean. The actual events of the novel derived their
connection and sometimes fraught nature of their relationship.

I adore how autobiographical this novel is. The author wrote


himself as Sal, and his fellow writer Neal Cassady as Dean, who is one of
Allen Ginsberg's lovers, Old Bull Lee was really William Burroughs, and
Damion was Lucien Carr (Carr's murder of David Kammerer led to Kerouac to
be arrested, and his parents-in-law paid the bail on condition that he married
their daughter. Kerouac had to go live with her in Michigan and divorced her
soon after to embark on a long trip that inspired the whole novel. I love it how
he inserted most of his close friends into them, and some were so close to the
truth that his friends prevented him from publishing them.
It is nice to read this book because it brings back so many great
feelings for the people and also to feel the period of Beat Generation even
though the people at this time was liberated and has no limit on everything
that they do.

It inspires me to go on the road and travel the country with my


homies and meeting new people and seeing sites I'd never dream of. I want to
have a good memories like Sal and Dean. I think there was a definite
romanticism to traveling the road.

I only hope someday I can travel the great magical road of


America and feel those great unconventional wonders of life in my own time
with the ghost of old Dean and Sal riding along side me.

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