English 2000 Perspectives in Literature

What does “the road” represent in this novel? Analyze “the road” as a symbol, and explain what it means at various points in the text.

I think it represents a personal quest for understanding, belonging and finding his inner self for Jack Kerouac (Sal Paradise) and Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty). Also I think it’s because he’s (Kerouac) always on the road from New York to California, Colorado and Mexico to find inspiration to finish his book. As a symbol “the road” becomes something to represent a new beginning, new views, knowing yourself more, finding something new about and exploring your surroundings. I also think it’s revolutionary because he sees things and thinks from different points of views, having freedom; getting away from the daily life routines and finally living new adventures.

1)  I agree that Dean Morairty is the center of the novel because Sal is interested in Dean’s life and how he strives for do better and be better in life even though he is conning his way through. Dean represent a carefree and that do whatever it takes behavior. Sat amires Dean because Dean is not the typical person he would be friends with and he was simply youth tremendously excited with life. I think he want to be like Dean but he do not have the courage to do what Dean does.  

Jodi Grant

So far in the novel I believe that “the road” represents freedom from escaping daily life routines and finally living  adventures from Sal’s point of view, “…I would be strange and ragged and like the prophet that has walked across the land to bring the dark Word, and the only Word i had was Wow.” As a symbol “the road” is anywhere and everywhere Sal and Dean travel to, whether its by foot, car, bus, train, etc. When they mention the road n the book it was at first Chicago, the Illinois, to Iowa and trying to end up back with with Dean at Denver.

The book On the Road, Dean Moriraty has carried out a good entrance in the beginning of the book. I feel, Dean is the center of this novel because the author, Jack Kerouac describes him more than the main character, Sal Paradise.

Dean has a love affair with two women, Marylou and Camille at the same time.  Also, Dean works at the parking – lot attendant, and he has been in and out of jail. Sal describes him as a madman and wild, which makes him like Dean very much because Dean has full of interesting thoughts where he can learn a lot new experiences from Dean. In addition, Sal feels, Dean is his long-lost brother, and admire his uneducated intelligence and enthusiasm. Because of that, Dean comes in handy for Sal to write new experiences for his novels.

           I think that so far Dean Moriarty does seem to be the center of this novel. There are 3-4 chapters where the Sal doesn’t really mention him and instead he just talks about his journey to Denver and all the different individuals he came in contact with. I think he talks about Dean a lot because he sees him as a brother, and Dean plays an important role in his life and impacts it deeply. For example he starts the novel immediately with, “I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up”(1). Therefore, Dean helps Sal through tough times in his life. he also says that “somehow in spite of our difference in character, he reminded me of some long-lost brother” (7).  Also, I think that Sal secretly wants to be like Dean. I think he wants to be like him, becasue Dean lives a very care-free,uncouth, free-spirit lifestyle, and on top of it he is a manipulator.  He wants to live life on the edge and be dangerous like Dean. Sal seems to have a refine and structured lifestyle up to this point and being “On the Road” with Dean and his friends allows him a chance to escape from that.

The moment Sal walks through the “Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro”, can mean that he feels that people of color have it easier than non colored people.  Sal also mentions “feeling that the best that the white world had offered was not ecstasy for me…” At this moment Sal feels like he is missing out on something that colored people are able to have and he is being deprived of and he wants to be part of. However at the time this story takes place the segregation between white and colored people was extreme. The living conditions, the stability, their way of life was completely two different worlds. Which Sal realizes that he wishes to be part of in some way because he feels that in the world he is part of isn’t fullfilling enough for him.

How does the text approach the controversial subject of homosexuality? Is it clearly advocating for the acceptance of homosexuality? Is there some underlying homophobia within the text? If so,where? Do you think these instances simply serve as character development, or do you think they reflect an internalized homophobia within Baldwin himself?

I think the text approached the controversial subject of homosexuality as neutral. For me I think it was only providing information, for the readers to understand the story better. Telling the story from points of views at time. Also I do think the characters did develop a great change in the story, because each one of the characters gave a twist to the main character, who didn’t like making decisions for himself but others deciding for him. Do they represent internalized homophobia within Baldwin… I think he does, because the way the story was writtten down, it seem as he did had bad feelings towards it. The way he found other man who were gay, make him sick even of himself

With certain characters, like Jaques and Giovanni, I feel that the author is trying to portray a sense of persuasion with David, trying to get him to accept his homosexuality in being a part of his identity. With the lady, that is in his room in the present day, I feel that it portrays a sense of needing to be normal. She plays his conscience in a way. He himself, his thoughts seem to be homophobic- He doesnt want to be gay, and he finds other gay guys to be desperate, disgusting and even abnormal. In his childhood, he had even bullied Joey for being the very same way that he is. In most of the text, you get a sense that he doesnt accept himself, because he cant appreciate his sexuality. He very much goes against it, which only shows me that he’s phobic of it.

What Lorde meant by this is that in order to survive those who are aware that they don’t fit in need to appear as though they meet the standard. They work hard to blend in, and fit into the normative set by others who would then go on to bully, look down at and go against anything that wasn’t the normative. David has phases, usually at critical moments of his life, where he does his best to fit into the normative. One example is during the time of Joey, with whom David initially explored his curiosities, when David went on to hide thiese interests by picking on Joey and messing with many females. He went on to do things he didnt neccessarily agree with, just because he didnt want others, especially his father who was a playboy himself, to view him any differently. He did to Joey that which he feared being done to himself. Even in the time of Giovanni, David clings to the normative by remaining engaged to Hella. Going as far as telling Giovanni that if Hella were there, he wouldnt be with Giovanni. Even then, he went and fucked another female, Sue, just to prove to himself that he could fulfil the role of the heterosexual male.

I think Giovanni’s room represents different things to each character. For Giovanni himself, his room represents a shelter or sanctuary to protect him from the outside world, a place to escape his past in Italy and contain all the muddles of his life. For David, the room might represent the opposite, where as, instead of thinking of the room as a place of refuge from his past, he uses Giovanni’s room to lock his past up, and in turn gets locked in himself. But yet for both characters, the room also serves as a memory location of intense experiences, which made a relatively ordinary and insignificant room a symbol of enormous significance. At one point, David says, “I scarcely know how to describe that room. It became, in a way, every room I had ever been in and every room I find myself in hereafter will remind me of Giovanni’s room”. David’s guilt and desire for Giovanni can clearly make almost any room come to resemble Giovanni’s. It is a place of physical reality, which both connects and conjures up such intense memories and emotions when called to mind.