Growing On The Road

Jack Kerouac is one of the most important and influential American writers in the20thcentury. Unlike the works of other American authors, Jack Kerouac’s novels arefeatured by its realistic style, loose structure and shocking plots, which numbers himamong the most contentious novelists in the20thcentury. Jack Kerouac composes18novels in all, and most of them give a detailed description of those young Americansliving in the post-war period who had lost their beliefs. The novels are full of depression,hostility and the spirit of unrest. Jack Kerouac is hailed as the representative of the BeatGeneration in America, and his works play a significant role in understanding thespiritual crisis among young Americans after World WarⅡ.On the Road is JackKerouac’s second novel as well as his masterpiece. The novel describes the crazyexperiences of a group of young Americans who have lost their direction of life in themainstream of American society and step on the road to search for the essence of life.This thesis analyzes the course of growing up of the hero Sal in On the Road fromthe perspective of Existentialism. The thesis is composed of three parts, the introduction,the main part and the conclusion, and the main body comprises three chapters. Firstly, theintroduction part comprises a brief introduction to Jack Kerouac and his works, the majorideas and representatives of Existentialism and the literature review of On the Road. Thefirst chapter analyzes the individual causes, the cultural causes and the materialfoundation that make Sal start travelling on the road. The second chapter studies Sal’sfreedom to release his human natures and the freedom to question his identity withexistential ideas. The third chapter mainly discusses the presentation of the existentialconsciousness of responsibility in Sal’s growing on the road. At last, the conclusion givesa summary of the above contents.The thesis serves to point out that everyone enjoys complete freedom to search forthe essence of his life, but he would have to learn to be responsible in this process. Themoment when he is aware of the responsibility that he should take in his life, he hascompleted the key step of growing up.