“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain” (The Dark Knight). There is a certain monstrosity that lives inside of everyone, and all it takes is a particular situation to highlight this truth. Monstrosity destroys the categories that humans tend to place objects and people into. When one contemplates what classifies as monstrous, many immediately consider biological categories that a monster might shatter. Nevertheless, a monster’s actions can also lead to a
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 and sad aspect that Sal simply fails
Road opens with the introduction of main characters, Sal Paradise, who had recently separated from his first wife, to Dean Moriarty. Although Sal had long been interested in Dean, it is Dean who comes to Sal, asking him to teach him how to write. Dean’s wife, Marylou returns to Denver, leaving him to bond with Sal over writing, music, and plans to travel west, where Dean is from and Sal has always wanted to go. Although Dean heads west on his own, Sal soon finds the opportunity to follow, when another
It is achieved through the act of gazing at women. The woman can also be used as a means to achieve something else, in this case sensual pleasure. Since the culture described in the novel is highly hedonistic, pleasure in terms of sex is crucial to Sal and his friends. Treating women as objects also implies to me that they are “replaceable” in the same way as items are obtained, used, disposed of and
In Jack Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, women are objectified and sexualized by the men in the story. Sal, Dean and other male characters use descriptive language to portray a woman’s looks and demeaning language to characterize the women they encounter. The men also disregard any feelings that the women have while also ignoring any positive qualities they may have. The two women who are the main victims in this novel are Marylou and Camille, and Dean Moriarty is the source of the majority of the mistreatment
Nick is told of Gatsby’s shady underworld connections and unhealthy obsession with a youthful love affair, whilst Sal is aware of Dean’s unstable background which saw him in and out of young offender units as well as knowing that he is one driven by his lust for both sex and drugs. It is left to A. E. Dyson to explain why Nick allows himself to be won over by such
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
On the other hand, Sal himself discovered that he needs the change in his life and become a road lover to discover. But, for Usbek going to Europe was a journey but did not transform his life in any way. As you can see, travel writing has allowed the characters in various novels to find their true self as a result of their journey which for a few was full of struggles and where for others was an enjoyable experience. Through various travel literatures we as readers detect how sexual discrimination
In this essay, three aspects of place and space will be discussed: the desire for place and space; the corruption of place and space as well as the lack of place and space. Space is the unlimited extend in an expanse, and a place is a specific part of space. In Kerouac’s work On the Road, the writer seeks to express the desire of American youth of his time for freedom through place and space. Moreover, Kerouac presents the lack of place and space through the narrator’s own dissatisfaction to demonstrate
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 of continuously being shuffled from city to city, Dean has encompassed what is and what is not important in life. While driving back to Testament in the '49 Hudson, Dean propositions Sal through an appeal to emotion. In passing