On The Road:Post 3

4. Consider both novels. What do you notice about the treatment of women? The characterization of women? Or the omission of women? What might it suggest or signify in either novel?

Sal idolizes Dean for his laidback cowboy style, his ease with women, and his all around joy in living. Over the course of the book, Dean marries, divorces, makes love to, and impregnates numerous women. Sal is considerably less promiscuous, but he doesn't seem to hold women in any higher of a light than Dean does. To Sal and Dean, on their journey for a greater understanding of themselves, and life, women were mere roadside attractions.

The first female Sal encounters sexually is Terry, a poor, working Mexican woman. "I had bought my ticket and was waiting for the LA bus when all of a sudden I saw the cutest little Mexican girl in slacks come cutting across my sight. Her breasts stuck straight out and true; her little flanks looked delicious; her hair was long and lustrous black; and her eyes were great big blue things with timidities inside. O gruesome life, how I moaned and pleaded, and then I got mad and realized I was pleading with a dumb little Mexican wench and I told her so" (p. 80) This quote makes clear Sal's intentions with this woman, and also the fact that he is somewhat racist. Then when Sal gets a job working in the fields with Terry, it's as if he views it all as a camping trip, or even an experiment, to possibly further himself spiritually.

Women were a sidetrack for the men in this novel.