The document provides context and discussion around the novel "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. It includes: 1) A quote from the novel describing the type of people the narrator is drawn to. 2) A comparison of the main characters in the novel and their real-life inspirations. 3) Background on the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s that the novel helped define through its portrayal of disaffection from conventional society and pursuit of spiritual fulfillment through travel and experience. 4) Brief descriptions and excerpts that discuss themes of searching for meaning and paradise through movement and travel across America.

1. ON THE ROAD

2. “The only people for
me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad
to live, mad to talk,
mad to be saved,
desirous of everything
at the same time, the
ones who never yawn or
say a commonplace
thing, but burn, burn,
burn like fabulous
yellow roman candles
exploding like spiders
across the stars.”
Sal Paradise.

3. THE CHARACTERS
In the book/movie In real life
Jack KeruakSal Paradise
Neal CassadyDean Moriarty
LuAnne HendersonMarylou
Carolyn CassadyCamille

4. A book that is constantly present in the whole
story
(and the translation in Spanish)

5. American social and literary movement originating in the 1950s and centred
in the bohemian artist communities of San Francisco’s North Beach, Los
Angeles’ Venice West, and New York City’s Greenwich Village.
• “Beat” originally mean “weary” but soon extended to connoting a musical
sense, a “beatific” spirituality.
• Alienation from conventional, or “square,” society by adopting an almost
uniform style of seedy dress, manners, and “hip” vocabulary borrowed from jazz
musicians.
• Generally apolitical and indifferent to social problems, they advocated personal
release, purification, and illumination

6. Notice the difference between the main
characters and the rest of people at the
bar.

7. “It would take all night to tell
about Old Bull Lee; let’s just say
now, he was a teacher, and it may
be said that he had every right to
teach because he spent all his time
learning; and the things he learned
were what he considered to be and
called «the facts of life,» which he
learned not only out of necessity
but because he wanted to [...] He
did all these things merely for the
experience. Now the final study
was the drug habit. He was now in
New Orleans, slipping along the
streets with shady characters and
haunting connection bars. (II.
6.33).”
Bull Lee, the most prominent
drug user of Sal’s friends, is
also the guru, suggesting a
connection in Sal’s mind
between drugs and wisdom.
OLD BULL LEE, drugs and heroes

8. LOOKING FOR HEAVEN
Mexico becomes their paradise, it represents the end of
the road and it is where he calls Dean a God.

9. "Now, Sal, we’re leaving everything behind us and entering a new and
unknown phase of things. All the years and troubles! and kicks - and
now this! so that we can safely think of nothing else and just go on
ahead with our faces stuck out like this you see, and understand the
world as, really and genuinely speaking, other Americans haven’t done
before us - they were here, weren’t they? The Mexican war. Cutting
across here with cannon." (IV.5.5)
For Dean, the journey into Mexico (and West, in general)
becomes a further search for knowledge.
GOING WEST

10. Both characters are looking for something, during the whole story.
They feel they don’t fit in the society and travel around the country, learning from
each other and sometimes going separately.
Only to realice that they will NEVER find that place because for them it is the way
what matters, not the destination.
“What's your road, man? — holyboy road, madman road,
rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road
for anybody anyhow.”
Dean, Ch. 1

11. AMERICA: love and dreams
Adapt to society and you will be happy.
Sal ends up fitting into the American society and trying to achieve the
American dream of a family with Laura.

12. THE ENDING
"So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier
watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in
one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all
the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children
must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be
out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and
shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete
night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final
shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the
forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty

13. QUESTIONS TO GET YOU THINKING
There is not just one answer for most of these questions so feel free to answer.
Take into account the book is bizarre itself so answers might be odd too.
• How would you describe the tone of the story?
• Remi says, "you can’t teach the old maestro a new tune."
Does On the Road make an argument for or against this
statement?
• There’s a great moment in the book when a guy Sal thinks is
a cop asks Sal and Eddie, "You boys going to get somewhere,
or just going?" Which do you think Sal is doing?
• Sal sings a song in which he says, "Home I’ll never be." Is
this true for Sal?
• On the Road is famous for its explicit treatment of drugs,
sex, and alcohol. But what’s the point? What do we see in the
Beat Generation because of this explicit material?
• What is Sal’s general vision of America?

14. Thank you for your attention.
I hope you enjoyed this book and
all its complicated insights.