First, prepare a response to the statement below in a Word document using coherent arguments, clear writing, and correct grammar. The initial response should be roughly 500 words in length with vivid and specific details from the text. Once the response is of publishable quality, cut and paste it into the blog thread prepared for the novel you read. You will be posting with students from all of my classes who read the same novel. Second, respond to three (3) students in the same blog (you may respond to students not in your class). Your responses must be at least 150 words in length, well-written, and correct in grammar. Make sure you thoughtfully respond to the initial posting, referencing the original student’s thoughts, as well as anyone else who has responded. Include in your responses informally referenced historical or modern day examples to support your argument. This is a scholastic application of Internet networking – “Internet speak,” acronyms, casual or inappropriate language, off-task communication, or profanity is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Any inappropriate response will be deleted immediately and no credit will be given.
Statement: Jack Kerouac strongly comments on American society in On the Road. Describe the commentary and Kerouac's purpose behind it, supporting your analysis with vivid, specific details from the text.
Emily Zucker
ReplyDelete9/7/10
AP English 11
Pd. 3
Jack Kerouac narrates this story through his main character Sal. He uses Sal to show a perception through Sal’s generation. Traveling west and east, and west again, Sal commentates on his ideas of America. This story takes place in the late 40’s, around when jazz bee bob music was taking charge. Sal talks vividly about many jazz artists, such as Billie holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, and Duke Ellington. He also talks about just listening to people playing in a bar or on the streets. Sal talks vividly of the intensity in the musicians, “ The pianist was only pounding the keys with spread-eagles fingers, chords, at intervals when the great tenorman was drawing breath for another blast-Chinese chords, shuddering the piano in every timber, chink, and wire, boing!” (Part 3 chapter 3). He also talks about the intensity of the audience, sweat pouring through their forehead as they dance and scream. Sal would talk about Dean’s reaction to the music, which would represent most of the American society. Jazz music is one of the only music genres that started in America, I think Jack Kerouac was trying to emphasize its importance throughout the novel.
In the beginning of this novel Sal has decided to take his first trip on the road. Hitchhiking and taking a bus is how he gets there. He wasn’t poor, but he hitchhiked and didn’t care. In chapter 4 part one, he describes the best ride of his life. On the back of a truck, Sal shared a ride with people from all over. Out of all the people he describes on the back of the truck, the homeless man is the one that he seems to like the most. “Mississippi gene was a little dark guy who rode freight trains around the country, a thirty-year-old hobo but with a youthful look so you couldn’t tell exactly what age he was.” (Part 1 chapter 4). Sal perceives the homeless in this novel, not as low and poor as we do, but as cool people who really know how to live. Dean also influences this idea, and the two of them somewhat become a traveling hobo by choice. The homeless were happy, not dirty. They traveled the world, not worrying about their future or where the road will take them. Jack Kerouac was trying to show this throughout the novel.
One last element that Jack Kerouac threw into this novel, was women. Sal runs into many different woman on his journey. Helping and hurting him, they have a very important role. Dean bounces two woman, one of which Sal falls for. Marylou, the woman Dean has and Sal wanted, turns into a scandalous hooker and leaves them both. Dean and Sal turn out to be incapable of having a real relationship with a girl because they are constantly on the road, constantly changing their mind. At one point Sal has a relationship with a Mexican girl named Terry. She was a really good girl for him, but Sals love for the road, and Dean convinced him to leave her. Jack Kerouac was trying to show that the adventure of the unknown overtook many young souls in this era.
Jack Kerouac most definitely disagreed with the lifestyle of the average American, as demonstrated by his actions, which were then considered very abnormal. In the 1950s, citizens were expected to behave like everyone else; there was a prevailing sense of decency about everyone. In this novel, Jack Kerouac abandons all of that. In Denver, Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) and his friends drink excessively. “Babe slipped and fell flat on her face. Poor girl was overwrought,” so tells Paradise. Such activity was not expected of a young lady like Babe Rawlins; as my grandmother tells, ladies were commonly expected to act very prim and proper. However, Paradise and company embrace such behavior as Babe’s, not caring for what the rest of the world may expect of them.
ReplyDeleteKerouac also expresses the importance of being respectful and tolerant of others’ decisions in life. While in San Francisco, Remi excitedly shows Sal the “Banana King.” When Sal expresses no interest in the “old man selling bananas on the corner,” Remi says to him, “Until you learn to realize the importance of the Banana King you will know absolutely nothing about the human-interest things of the world.” Sal and Dean are close with common criminals, being common criminals themselves; Dean steals cars frequently, (in Part 3, Chapter 7 alone, he steals four cars), Sal often steals cigarettes and bread from gas stations, Old Bull Lee is a cocaine addict, and countless characters take benzedrine. However, Sal deeply admires this motley crew of characters, believing them to be genuinely good people despite society’s impression of such abusers. Jack Kerouac/Sal Paradise’s choosing of such a lifestyle also indicates a problem with conformity, which was very common after World War II (think of the Red Scare). In this crazy, McCarthyism-infected U.S.A., Kerouac felt free to explain Dean’s bum-glorifying revelations as “reaching his Tao decisions,” which may sound totally fine today, but may have been seen then as residing in the category of “not American,” which is kind of like saying “Communist” to McCarthy’s supporters.
Kerouac also seemed to believe that common, everyday life was boring, was too sedentary. Upon getting back “on the road,” Sal Paradise describes the landscape: “Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries. I stuck my head out the window and took deep breaths of the fragrant air. It was the most beautiful of all moments.” Whenever Sal stays in one place for more than a few weeks, things go terribly for him. At the end of his stay in Denver: “Everything seemed to be collapsing;” of San Francisco: “Everything was falling apart;” of the grape fields: “Everything was collapsing.” Kerouac obviously favors mobility, thinking the normal life to be far too slow, or far too often resulting in conflict. Observing Dean’s new life with Camille in New York City, Paradise describes him as being “reduced to simple pleasures.” Thinking of his future in New York, Sal says, “I gaped into the bleakness of my own days.” Clearly, Kerouac takes issue with the mundane activities of the city life, of the average American life. “But no matter, the road is life,” he tells.
The sense of wondering seen in the novel -- is this a feature of modern society? Is it a necessary feature? Does wondering create generations without a sense of purpose, or can wondering clarify and solidify one's purpose? Hemmingway referred to his generation as lost and Ginsberg "saw the best minds of [his] generation destroyed by madness" -- are modern generations lost, a casualty of mechanized (digitalized) society?
ReplyDeleteEmily Zucker, Response to Nick Hurst’s post
ReplyDeleteNick made many interesting points. I would like to talk about how at the end of each adventure Sal went on, it would finish with chaos. Not only would it end in chaos, but Sal would also lose a friend he once had due to the disorientation Dean would cause. Why does Sal choose an unstable life on the road over good friends? Also, I’m not sure if Kerouac was disagreeing with the average american lifestyle, but more so trying to show another side of the 50s. The 50s was the time where people wanted to break away from proper living. People became addicted to the sense of fun and thrill disobeying society game them. Marilyn Monroe was very prominent in the 50s, providing a strong role model for many woman to change the common way.
Emily Zucker’s reply to Mrs. Kushner’s post
ReplyDeleteI do think that a sense of wondering is a feature of modern society. Children are not born into the world knowing everything about themselves, and what they want their future to be. It takes decades for people to figure that stuff out, some even die without knowing. Before I take a big test, teachers tell me that a good strategy is to cross off answers I don’t know. That’s how people treat life, except they have to try a lifestyle before they know if it‘s for them or not. There would be no trial-and-error living if people didn’t wonder just to see what comes at them. People who wonder have one goal, or purpose, and that is to figure life out. I do not agree with Hemmingway’s quote. Generations seem lost due to all of the poor decision making, but really people are just young. A choice of freedom and the unknown is too temping for young people, but eventually they get older and their minds are just as great.
Thank you to all the participants!
ReplyDelete