Jack Kerouac Essays

Objectification and Sexism on the Road Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, explores the complex worlds of masculinity, friendship, freedom and the delusions of the American dream. It was extremely influential to American culture and it spoke to young Americans of that generation as well as the generations that followed. On the Road is an exploration of the world of the traveler, and from it Kerouac was able to create a world in his book that illustrates the lives as well as the motivations of a counterculture

conformity, while other writers of the time period wanted to create a novel that defined the generation. On the Road by Jack Kerouac shows this time period through the eyes of a wanderlustful writer. He didn’t try to show the cultural geography of the common people who lived ordinary lives, but rather the wanderers who lived to see the diversity of America. On the Road by Jack Kerouac shows the cultural geography of the time period using the road and the

Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums does not fall too far from a basic description of his life. Kerouac spent the bulk of his writing career riding trains from city to city, meeting people and writing books and poetry. He was among the premier writers of the Beat Generation, a group of primarily urban poets and writers who put the basics of life and their spiritual nuances into poetry with a beat. The book, The Dharma Bums, is a window into the daily structure of the

On The Road and the American Quest        Jack Kerouac's On The Road is the most uniquely American novel of its time.  While it has never fared well with academics, On The Road has come to symbolize for many an entire generation of disaffected young Americans.  One can focus on numerous issues wh en addressing the novel, but the two primary reasons which make the book uniquely American are its frantic Romantic search for the great American hero (and ecstasy in general), and Kerouac's "Spontaneous

Generation where Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs. And although their bold, expressive poetry led to great fame, this generation of poets gained a new fan base of critics who thought their work was just a way to seek attention and was not seen as serious art. Allen Ginsberg, born 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, unknowingly found himself creating a new generation of people when he was attending Columbia University and met Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. There they exchanged

greatly prevalent. The lifestyle in bohemian centralized communities were explored and described by many authors and some of the most well-known authors of this generation are  Herbert Huncke, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Jack Kerouac. All authors gave light to what beat generation was like through their work of art. They outlined that Beat Generation is an approach made by the people to reach a certain goal. Some of the goals are personal release and purification. Sounds familiar

in On The Road An argument can be made that the women in Jack Kerouac's On The Road are not as characteristically well developed as the men. Through Sal and Dean's interactions with women, the reader sees that there exist two types of females in this novel - the benevolent virgin/mother figure or the whore. Women are constantly referred to in a negative way or blatantly degraded and insulted by numerous characters. However, Kerouac (through the character of Sal) exhibits sympathy for women. Sal

The Impact of Dean on Sal's Identity in On the Road On The Road begins with the protagonist, Sal, (representative of author Jack Kerouac), being overwhelmed by feelings of confusion and uncertainty regarding his personal identity. He then meets ‘Dean Moriarty’, an eccentric character who rejects societal values and ‘norms’. Sal is absorbed with and entranced by Dean, perceiving him as almost ‘superhuman’, and decides to follow him across the country. A passive character, Sal soon becomes dependent

A form of literature evolved around the 50s that changed the course for all writers to come. This new style of writing arose from the literature movement known as the Beat Generation. It motivated a change. During this time the authors questioned societal norms and were unafraid to address previously forbidden topics such as sex, drugs, and other deviant behaviors or in other words the "dark" aspects of life. These writers not only wrote but experienced much of what they penned. They often lived

world we live in. There are many different writers who's work contributed to the literature of the beat movement; however; Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg were the most