On The Road Chapter 1 Summary

In a world where survival is your only concern, what would you do to stay alive? This is one of many thought-provoking questions that Cormac McCarthy encourages in his book, The Road. McCarthy, a Rhode Island native is a seasoned author, with more than 14 other works in his portfolio. McCarthy is a very private man, and there isn’t a lot known about him. The lack of information on McCarthy does not reflect his writing abilities, which are very strong and not lacking at all.

Ken Kesey’s figurative language in his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, suggests that broken individuals can connect and make each other whole again. The traumatic events that occur when the patients are younger still affect them in their current state. For example, throughout his life, Bromden has always been assumed to be deaf and dumb. When he spoke to people their “machinery dispose[d] of the words like they weren’t even spoken” (181). Kesey’s metaphor represents how Bromden feels that the Combine influences him. When Bromden speaks, the words do not “fit” in the listener’s brain and they ignore him (181). Being a large Native American man, Bromden does not fit into the mold that is set by the Combine (societal expectations), so

-There is a focus on storytelling as a means of healing: "It is the story of my childhood. Now I tell it to you, Xavier, to keep you alive."(35)

Kesey was a strong advocate for individualism and self discoveration. His writing portrays his opinion on how individuals “conform” by unconsciously falling to society’s needs. When this novel was written, society ostracized individuals who were thought to be abnormal or different, and because of this societal influence, people allowed themselves to become molded into what they thought was “normal”.

Chapter 30 begins with Niska collecting stones that speak to her, in order to build a fire. Xavier is fading away, while Niska tries her best to keep him alive with her stories. She figures that she knows of no medicine or other methods to help ease Xavier’s pain. She want to tell him of his first hunting story alone when Xavier was 6 years old. When tracking a moose, he found a rare chance to witness a mating dance of grouse. Xavier forgot about fear as he watched the dance; however he was hungry, so he shot the female strangler. The next day, he and his aunt tracked and killed the moose. They were proud and returned home for a feast with other awawatuk. Xavier told them of his hunting story by dancing, from then on, he was nicknamed, Little

This choice of narrators for Kesey, in my opinion, may be considered troublesome. He seems to ask the reader to trust the voice of a madman. This seems to do anything but create a narrator who is trustworthy. Upon rereading the Nest, I found myself doubting the narrator because he seems to be inconsistent. In the first section of the

Ken Kesey’s figurative language in his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, suggests that broken individuals can connect and make each other whole again. The traumatic events that occur when the patients are younger still affect them in their current state. Throughout his life, Bromden has always been assumed to be deaf and dumb. When he spoke to people their “machinery dispose[d] of the words like they weren’t even spoken” (181). Kesey’s metaphor represents how Bromden feels that the Combine influences him.

Three Day Road takes place in 1919 after the first world war in northern Ontario. An Oji-Cree medicine woman named Niska, who has received the good news of the return of a family friend from war, decided to go and retrieve him from the train station. Yet instead of the expected meeting with Elijah, she finds herself face to face with her supposedly dead nephew Xavier Bird. Although he had survived through the war, it had cost him a leg. Realizing he was surviving off the military’s morphine and his disease was truly from the inside, Niska knew the last thing there was to keep him alive were the stories that kept her alive through the winters of her childhood. In return, Xavier decides to tell Niska stories of the war. He revealed that he and

When hear the name Merry Pranksters what comes to your mind? Let me guess a group of young individuals dressed in a joker costume running around throwing water balloons from roof tops or shaking hands with strangers to taze them. Merry Pranksters were not exactly known for doing that, but they were group of young adults who did pranks with LSD. For instance, they mixed LSD in a bowl of Kool-Aid in their parties to get their guests high and this was known as Electric Kool-Aid Test. “In the 1960s, heroes of the counterculture -- Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, the Beatles and the Grateful Dead -- embraced the practice of dropping acid, viewing it as a great way to party and as the path to a higher consciousness” (Ross). At the same time, in the sixties violence was prevalent from Vietnam War, to protesters rebelling against the government and U.S. was at a brink of starting World War 3 with the Soviet Union. As a result, this made the American people pessimistic about their future, so they began to take LSD and drugs. We can see things in today’s culture that were partially inspired by the Merry Pranksters, such as using LSD in order to be connect with the self, two distinct groups of LSD users and the revival of psychedelic movement.

He also is very influenced by increasing one's dependence with technology and throughout his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest he uses rebellion against society and going against the law. "When New York wants to view somebody's personality, they want it in terms of a sound bite," Kesey said. "They don't want to have it get too complex. It's like coming over [to our performance] tonight. We got caught in the traffic. And I just hate coming to a place late because I know that's what they expect of me and my Prankster upbringing. [They think] 'Here he is; he's late; he's probably messed up.' But I'm not. I've always been a reliable, straight-up-the-middle-of-the-road citizen that just happens to be an acidhead."(Kesey 6). This shows how many people do not believe that Kesey is a reliable person and that he is “messed up” in a way from the things that he has done but he explains how that is not true. “The greatest thing Cowley taught me was to respect other writers’ feelings. If writing is going to have any effect on people morally, it ought to affect the writer morally. It is important to support everyone who tries to write because their victories are your victories. So I have never really felt that bitter cattiness writers feel toward their peers.”(5) Kesey explains how he is not like other writers and he is a just like everyone else and does not feel bitter to his peers like they are lesser than

The Road is a story where is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the date and location is unnamed. The author of the novel Cormac McCarthy doesn 't describe why or how the disaster has demolish the earth. But after reading the novel, I can sense that the author wanted to present a case of mystery and fear to the unknown to the reader. By the author 's exclusion I think that the story gains a better understanding of what the author wanted to express to the reader. An expression of a man and his son surviving in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Imagine yourself living in a barren, desolate, cold, dreary world, with a constant fear of the future. The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy and published in 2006, is a vivid and heartwarming novel that takes us through the journey of a father and a son as they travel South in a post-apocalyptic environment facing persistent challenges and struggles. McCarthy proves that love unleashes immense strength to overcome obstacles, even in times of desperation.

Wolfe’s first main point was to emphasize the psychedelic movement’s disillusionment with society during the 1960s, which is clearly seen by Ken Kesey’s urgings to use LSD to transcend reality and bring a higher state of consciousness to those individuals involved. Wolfe’s second main point was to highlight the desire to escape, which is clearly seen in many of the Merry Pranksters, especially Mountain Girl, who escapes a mundane life in New York to join Kesey and the psychedelic movement. Wolfe’s last point was to show equally the darkness and light in Kesey’s story to educate people about the good and bad sides of the 1960s psychedelic movement, which is clearly seen by Wolfe’s descriptions of the enlightenment that LSD brings as well as the bad trips that could leave people wounded for

Jack Kerouac is considered a legend in history as one of America's best and foremost Beat Generation authors. The term "Beat" or "Beatnic" refers to the spontaneous and wandering way of life for some people during the period of postwar America, that seemed to be induced by jazz and drug-induced visions. "On the Road" was one such experience of Beatnic lifestyle through the eyes and heart of Jack Kerouac. It was a time when America was rebuilding after WW I. Describing the complexity and prosperity of the postwar society was not Karouac's original intent. However, this book described it a way everyone could visualize. It contained examples and experiences of common people looking for new and exciting

In the play “Twelfth Night”, Shakespeare presents many tricksters. In fact, the majority of the characters can somewhat be characterized as a trickster. Some characteristics that you would see in a trickster are that they are intelligent, ambiguous, deceitful, and self-serving. In the play “Twelfth Night” some characters that you would classify as tricksters are Viola, Feste, Maria, Sir Toby Belch, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Some tricksters are of higher class/rank while others are of lower class/servants. In “Twelfth Night”, the tricksters are used to develop conflict, challenge social order, and create comedy.