Jack Kerouac's Rejection of Traditional Values in On the Road
One of the most notable aspects of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, is the author’s willingness todescribe his own behaviors and attitudes in ways that reject traditional values, but enable himto make observations about America. These range from things like excessive drinking, whichwould always be viewed negatively, to an interest in jazz and racial mixing, which would have been viewed negatively in the 1950’s but not today. Also, Kerouac was part of a literarymovement – the Beats – whose rejection of traditional values was well known. BecauseKerouac rejected traditional values, On the Road was very controversial, but it was alsoinfluential.On the Road is a clearly autobiographical book, in which “Kerouac makes no attempt toseparate himself from his narrator” (Bartlett 125). On the Road is based on Kerouac’s actualexperiences, and the characters are based on actual people who he knew. (Bartlett 120;Latham; Charters 410-411). Therefore, Kerouac admits to doing anything that the narrator, SalParadise, did.One form of behavior that would be always be viewed negatively is excessive drinking. Saloften admits to drinking, but Kerouac uses this to make some interesting observations. For example, there is the time when Sal is with his friend Terry, and her brother Rickey andRickey’s friend Ponzo. Since Ponzo is in the business of buying and selling manure, they planto spend the say looking for manure, but they end up spending the day drinking (Kerouac,Road 92-3). At the end of the day, they go to a crossroads saloon, and Sal observes that“Americans are always drinking in crossroads saloons on Sunday afternoon; they bring thekids; they gabble and brawl over brews; everything’s fine. Come nightfall the kids start cryingand the parents are drunk. They go weaving back to the house” (Kerouac, Road 92-3)Another example of Sal’s negative behavior is when he stays with Remi in Mill City. He gets a job as a guard but does not take his job seriously. He is surprised that he gets hired in the first place (Kerouac, Road 64), which shows that he does not actually care much for being a guard.He calls the other guards “bastards” (Kerouac, Road 64) even before he meets them, whichshows his lack of respect for the guards. Once he gets the job, Sal realizes that he simply cannot perform it because he “gulpsat the prospect of making an arrest”( Kerouac, Road 65). He cannot arrest people because of his general attitude; he does not feel that they deserve to be arrested even if they are being loudand are not following orders. His feelings about arrests explain why Sal describes the guardsas “a horrible crew of men, men with cop-souls” (Kerouac, Road 65)