Road To Authenticity: Countercultural Elements In On The Road

On the Road is Jack Kerouac's most famous masterpiece that has just celebrated its 50^th anniversary of publication in the year 2007. Dubbed as the "Holy Bible" of a quite disputable literary group, the Beat Generation, this novel has its place in American history. The last 50 years has seen On the Road continue to influence and inspire a new generation of people who have pursued their own creative process. Iconized by the youth rebels, On the Road is an early manifesto of the 1960s' counterculture movement. The main aim of this thesis is to explore the counterculture elements through a textual analysis of On the Road, which will help to reveal the significant role the book played in both social and literary history.This thesis is divided into three chapters: The first chapter contains a brief introduction to the Beat Generation and its relationship with the counterculture movement, and also a portrait of Jack Kerouac and his On the Road.Chapter two is the most important part of the whole thesis, which is devoted to a survey of the counterculture elements in the text mainly based on Heidegger's existentialist theories, and is also supplemented by some other theories such as postmodernist theories and Freud's theory. It is further divided into three sections: anti-conformity, anti-materialism and anti-rationalism. In the first section, there is a detailed analysis of how the protagonist, Sal Paradise (the counterpart of Jack Kerouac), step by step, goes on the road of self-searching for the authenticity of both the individual and the world. The spirit essence of the Beat, beatific, is revealed through Dean Moriarty's perspective of authentic Time, which is different from the conventional clock time. The second section gives us an antithesis between materialism and naturalism. Primitivism highlighted in the novel by Kerouac functions as a rebellion against the artificial, money-worshiped society. In the third section, rationalism is criticized, while the intuition and instinct of the primitive human mind is advocated. The bizarre behavior of the beats, drug-taking, jazz zealotry, sexual abuse and high-speed movement, are all ways to transcend conventionality to a real self, a pure mind.Chapter three is the conclusion of this thesis. Based on the survey above, the thesis draws the conclusion that On the Road draws up the curtain of the 1960s' countercultural movement against the conformity of middle-class America. The "way" it introduced to the public, especially the young generation, is a successful one. This text widens people's view of the world as well as changes their attitudes towards life.