What is your impression of Sal as a narrator? Reliable? Unreliable? Explain and cite the text for support.
My impression of Sal as a person is that he's kind of a flake. He rarely honors his commitments, such as being two weeks late meeting his friend Remi in San Francisco, and he lives life for the experiences, going along with anyone's plans so he can say that he has really lived. He is obsessive about life, it's his favorite topic. "I tried to tell her how excited I was about life, and the things we could do together." (51)
That said, Sal's thirst for life makes him a great narrator. Kerouac has him describing every experience so you can feel like you lived it, like you're getting as much out of life as he is. Even a mundane event like playing basketball with his friends becomes an existential experience for Sal. "He passed me like the wind. As we ran I had a mad vision of Dean running through life just like that— his bony face outthrust to life, his arms pumping, his brows sweating, his legs twinkling like Groucho Marx..." (143-144) As you read this passage, you see how Sal gets a thrill out of life in every second. He doesn't want to miss a thing, and as a narrator, he doesn't.
The one thing about his narration, is that he refuses to consider anything that would go against his views on life. He complains about his family not having a lot of money, but he frequently drops out of school and loses his jobs, giving everything up to travel, alternating between sending home money, and asking for money. He also views women as sex objects and housekeepers, mostly talking about them in sexual terms, and expecting them to clean up after him. "Dean...decided the thing to do was have Marylou make breakfast and sweep the floor."(2) These flaws make his narration seem sexist and self-indulgent.
2 comments:
I agree with pretty much everything you said in this post. Sal makes everything a life experience. Everything is a personal voyage, a revelation. The way everything was written made everything so easy to visualize.
I thought it was interesting how he used such simple language in such an extraordinary way to make every experience so vivid, so real.
I agree with the general statement: Sal makes everything into a life experience. However I think that the question is less about "how do you like Sal" than how reliable is he in his story." I say this only because in your first sentence you talk about how you feel about the character, not the narration. Let me know if my interpretation of your writing is incorrect.
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