In my opinion, both novels had a very different outlook on women, one which very much helped define both books. In "The Road" there is very little mention of women, and when there is it is not in a positive light. Aside from a couple run ins the father and son duo had with female strangers, the only woman in the story is the man's late wife. At one point he is recalling one of his last conversations with her, in which he is trying to persuade her not to commit suicide:
"I don’t care. It’s meaningless. You can think of me as a faithless slut if you like. I’ve taken a new lover. He can give me what you cannot.
Death is not a lover.
Oh yes he is.
Please don’t do this.
I’m sorry.
I can’t do it alone.
Then don’t. I can’t help you. They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I don’t dream at all. You say you cant? Then don’t do it. That’s all. Because I am done with my own whorish heart.”
Pg. 56-57
To me, this quote shows in “The Road” women are definitely not seen in a positive light, because the one true role model we have for a woman is a self proclaimed whore who selfishly left her son and husband behind in a dying world. This is not to say the book is anti female, it just does nothing to put them in a positive light. On the other hand, Kerouac utilizes women, making sex a major theme of the book. Almost every character appreciates woman, to Dean,
“…sex was the one and only holy and important thing in life.”
Pg. 2
Although you could say that it is disrespectful to women the way these men go around have sex all the time and primarily use women as sex objects, I don’t think that Kerouac wrote it with the intentions of seeming disrespectful. Rather, I think he just really enjoyed sex and love, and therefore appreciated women, especially the beautiful ones. For me, the way Kerouac writes about these men falling all over the pretty girls, and constantly putting their love life above all else, makes them seem like the foolish lofty ones, and gives the women a sort of mysterious siren like persona.
2 comments:
I agree, both of these books shed a slightly different light on what women were. "The Road" Didnt have a many refferences towards women as "On the Road" had. When there was, it only really pertained to the mans his wife. In "On the Road" a womans beauty was always admred along with sex and sometimes degrading them even.
I agree with what you are saying, however I think that McCarthy's book The Road also has a lot of sexual references in relation to women. However I can say that it is definitely in more of a crude less-than love way. The wife says just before the quote you said "They will rape me. They will rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won’t face it."
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