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Sal's Journey On The Road Research Paper

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In the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Sal is constantly trying to find a new beginning. In search of it he goes all the way out West going through many adventures and making many friends along the way. Everywhere his travels lead him problems rise, yet Sal still follows his dream and goes out West. The West offers a lot of new opportunities to Sal and that, along with the encouragement of his friends, is the cause for his trip. In Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road the West signifies Sal’s search for adventure, his dream, and new opportunities.
Sal’s travels out West signify his constant search for adventure in his life. The reader gets an idea of this in the quote, “I'd been poring over maps of the United States in Paterson for months, even …show more content…

The reader sees this in the quote, “It was an ordinary bus trip with crying babies and hot sun, and countryfolk getting on at one Penn town after another, till we got on the plain of Ohio and really rolled, up by Ashtabula and straight across Indiana in the night” (Kerouac 11). The quote shows the reader that Sal will do anything to achieve his dreams even if it means going through tough hardships. This shows the reader Sal’s determination to go out West due to the obstacles in his way. The reader even gets the sense of Sal’s dreams in the following quote, “Filled with dreams of what I'd do in Chicago, in Denver, and then finally in San Fran, I took the Seventh Avenue Subway to the end of the line at 242nd Street, and there took a trolley into Yonkers; in downtown Yonkers I transferred to an outgoing trolley and went to the city limits on the east bank of the Hudson River” (Kerouac 9). The reader gets an idea, based on the quote, of how Sal has big dreams that he wants to fulfil on his travels out West. This shows the reader that Sal is ready to follow his dreams and go wherever they take him. The West also signifies how Sal is in constant search for new opportunities on his

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