On the Road Jack Kerouacs Rejection of the Middle Class...

Jack Kerouac was one of a group of young men who, immediately after the Second World War, protested against what they saw as the blandness, conformity and lack of cultural purpose of middle-class life in America. The priorities of people of their age, in the mainstream of society, were to get married, to move the suburbs, to have children and to accumulate wealth and possessions. Jack Kerouac and his friends consciously rejected this pursuit of stability and instead looked elsewhere for personal fulfillment. They were the Beats, the pioneers of a counterculture that came to be known as the Beat Generation. The Beats saw mainstream life as a prison. They wanted freedom, the freedom to pick up and go at a moments notice. This search for†¦show more content†¦I had just gotten over a serious illness that I wont bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with a miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead (Kerouac 1). Thus begins Sals life on the road and his search for a more meaningful, authentic life. He has failed to find authenticity in mainstream society but hopes to find it on societys fringes. In the novel, Sals search for authenticity begins and ends with his association with Dean Moriarty. His highly charged friendship with Dean Moriarty continues throughout the novel but finally ends with a denouement in Mexico City. In his frenetic search for authenticity, Sal encounters a continuous progression of marginalized people that include not only Deans friends and sexual partners but also hobos, migratory farm workers and black jazz musicians. Sal feels that all these people have authenticity because they all value the immediate over the traditional expectations of mainstream society. Kerouac defines the intense moment or It as the culmination of the immediate. It is well illustrated when Sal and Dean, together with a group of their Beat friends, go to a wild party at the house of Rollo Greb on Long Island, and Dean e nthuses about Rollo saying, if you go like him all the time youll finally get it. Get what? It! It! Ill tell you - now no time, we have no time now (127). Later inShow MoreRelated Importance of Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road Essay3039 Words   |  13 PagesMoriarty in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road It is Dean Moriarty, in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, who represents the eternal flame of youth that was adopted by the rebellious youth culture of the Beat Generation. He is free from responsibility, â€Å"simply a youth tremendously excited with life†¦want[ing] so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him† (Kerouac 4). Just as the Greek of the Olympics, â€Å"with [the] torch†¦[that] ignites the pagan dream of immortality†