On the Road, Post 3, Question 2

2. Can you tell Kerouac loved language? Reflect on where in the novel this love-of-language is most evident and explore its impact on the telling of the story.

On the Road conveys a love of language-with a phrase, or precisely-placed metaphor, Kerouac expresses great joy at the smallest things, or finds light in the bleakest of places. He ties the differing landscapes of cities and the countryside together with frantic detail. On the Road conveys a love for words by using them in unusual ways, twisting expressions into something that provokes memories or feelings.

“I yelled for joy. We passed the bottle. The great blazing stars came out, the far-receding sand hills got dim. I felt like an arrow that could shoot out all the way.” (25). Kerouac’s love of language is evident in these few lines, as he conveys great joy and wonder, imagining himself as an arrow, shooting across the land before him. In a later part of the book, when Sal finds himself in an impoverished Mexico city, he still finds beauty in the tragedy around him: “Hundreds of whores lined themselves along the dark and narrow streets and their sorrowful eyes gleamed at us in the night…Whole families of them sat on the sidewalk, playing little flutes and chuckling in the night Their bare feet stuck out, their dim candles burned, all Mexico was one vast Bohemian camp.” (300-301). The prostitutes that he sees remind him of shadows, with gleaming eyes, and the beggar families remind him of Bohemians, bare feet in the dark. With his words, Kerouac turns these sad sights into literary imaginings.

In On the Road, Kerouac also manages to compare and contrast the city and the countryside, passionately detailing the sights and sounds of each place. “South Main Street, where Terry and I took strolls with hot dogs, was a fantastic carnival of lights and wildness. Booted cops frisked people on practically every corner…that grand wild sound of bop floated from the beer parlors; it mixed medleys with every kind of cowboy and boogie-woogie in the American night.” (87). In this scene, Kerouac gives the reader a vivid imagining of a crowded night, reminding us of a late-night festivity from our own memories that we can relate to this description. At the same time, Kerouac can make a country view seem as colorful and vibrant as a stroll in the Los Angeles nighttime: “I got out of the car. We were in the mountains: there was a heaven of sunrise, cool purple airs, red mountainsides, emerald pastures in valleys, dew, and transmuting clouds of gold; on the ground gopher holes, cactus, mesquite.” (164). Kerouac captures the hidden beauty of the natural world, reveling in a the rainbow of color, sights, and textures.