Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is clearly semi-autobiographical, and is therefore only semi-reliable. After all, who has complete knowledge of themselves, and who would be completely honest if they did? The novel itself reads almost like a series of journal entries.
The opening line of the book raises doubts about the narrator’s frankness and credibility:“ I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about,” (pg. 1) that the narrator, Sal Paradise, was going to choose what, and more importantly, what-not to elaborate on. And what sort of “illness” was it?
The narration itself has two main components: the facts of the journey and Sal’s emotions and reactions to the situations he finds himself in. Much of Sal’s account of his journey, especially as the novel stars, is bluntly factual and almost chronological. Sal lists things that he has done on an almost hour-by-hour bias. For example “the bus trip from Denver to Frisco was uneventful…Cheyenne again, in the afternoon this time, and then west of the range; crossing the divide at midnight at Creston, arriving at Salt Lake City at dawn” (pg. 60). The narrator is very specific about when and where he is going, pouring an almost excessive amount of detail into the account of his travels. There is no immediate reason to doubt this part of the novel. It seems as if Kerouac wants to make Sal’s journey replicable.
Sal also talks about his emotions, which are definitively less-reliable then the facts, as the reader has to somewhat take his word for granted. The observations and experiences Sal has are purely subjective and could not be replicated as his travels across the U.S. could be. One example of this type of writing is his reaction to Dean leaving him in Mexico: “When I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes” (pg. 302). This type of narration is not as reliable as the latter.
Sal’s narration also includes much of the local slang in each town he spends time in. This adds to the authenticity of the story and makes the narration seem more carefully thought out. For example on page 220 he reflects a characters dialect by exchanging the word “get” with “git.” This attention to detail adds a whole new level to the reliability of the story.
1 comment:
Eric I definitely agree with you when you said Kerouac selectively chooses what, and what not to speak about in his travels. It seems that he touches more on the little things portray this very detailed image in your mind. It is as if he prefers to talk about anything and everything that his on his mind at the very moment. I do not think his observations with his many friends and new acquaintances along the way could be any more detailed.
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