Pleasure And Excess In Jack Kerouac`s On The Road

A careful look at Jack Kerouac s On the Road brings the concept of excessive pleasure to the forefront, changing the tone of this particular extract from light-hearted fun to something altogether more sinister. Ostensibly, Kerouac s careful choice of language and rhetoric used to depict a night of enjoyable celebration does just that. However, a more attentive reading of the same linguistic devices uncovers a foreboding descri ption of the harmful effects of over-indulgence and the motif of pleasure in excess.

The aforementioned pursuit of pleasure is a pervasive theme throughout this extract. It provides the amiable and engaging mask under which hides the less palatable face of the characters thirst for more. Dean Moriarty, our narrator Sal Paradise and their friends roar and dance and hurl around the thirty by thirty feet room, scream[ing] above the fury . The dramatic use of verbs here reinforces the high-volume and violently performative aspects of the character s behaviour. The little grandmother s boy with the taped-up alto performs very physically, as does Dean. [H]is whole body jumping on his heels implies that he has been completely consumed by the music and cannot contain his enjoyment he is beside himself with pleasure. Their audience is pulled into the scene by the repeated motif of noise and the seemingly drunken giddiness of the performers. Indeed, the performance itself becomes rather intrusive, as Sal describes the tone of the young horn player as bl[owing] straight in our faces , an image which provides a sensual aspect which is tangible to the reader. The condensed idea of very simple ideas of performance implies that the primary goal of the young boy s exploits is, very simply, to entertain his audience: he wishes to encourage their laughter and understanding in an innocent and pure form. Even the waiter, Lampshade, becomes implicit in the joviality, roaring and hurling around, danc[ing] with the cooks and com[ing] sweating back . Again, there is a certain verbosity here which later is dismantled by Kerouac, the hurling and dancing giving way to absolut[e] motionless[ness] and absolute weariness by the end of the extract. It is interesting that Kerouac s preliminary interpretation of Frisco nights in this extract is initially one of satisfaction and delight. Within lies a clear link to the writer s own liberal outlook during his youth, travelling America with his friends. As part of a roman clef, we see in this extract a generous smattering of the restlessness Kerouac felt when constrained by late nineteen-forties and early fifties America. Its rigid, normative expectations and suburban culture fed his yearning for hedonistic, simplistic pleasure a yearning for the open road, free travel and the wind bl[owing] straight in our faces .

But the physical movements in the extract show the purported pleasures beginning to slip into something more sinister. The young horn player hopped and flopped with his horn and threw his feet around , all the while his eyes fixed on the audience . Through this, images of torture begin to appear as it is unnatural for a performer to maintain constant, fixed eye contact with his audience throughout the entire performance. This, therefore, evokes a certain uneasiness in the reader, and suggests that something more corrupt is occurring. Deans simultaneous performance is equally unnerving. His head bowed and the fact that he is oblivious to everything else in the world coupled with the pouring and splashing of his sweat is reminiscent of modern representations of alcohol or drug addiction. Lack of awareness and perfuse perspiration are often linked to dramatic interpretations of drug abuse, addiction and overdose. The somewhat cinematic image of a fitful and frantic performance is created here, a performance fuelled by something other than simple ideas of pleasure. Through the selection of adjectives, Kerouac here toys with the lexical field of drug use and addiction, depicting unnervingly sporadic movement and seemingly unfitting bodily responses which we feel must be explained by an ulterior cause. Kerouac himself was an avid drug user, taking amphetamines such as Benzedrine regularly, and becoming addicted. The unnerving and unpleasant imagery conjured by the careful descri ptions of movement in this extract provide us with a view of vice, gluttony and over-indulgence in intoxicating substances which result in strange and occasionally frightening behaviours, far from innocent fun.

Indeed, the repeated motif of sweat and sweating also play a major role in pointing out the fine line crossed from pleasure into pain. Dean is said to have sweat always the sweat pouring and splashing down his tormented collar to lie actually in pools at his feet . Perspiration is a repeated aspect of this extract, appearing in three separate instances and much more throughout the novel as a whole. Kerouac s decision to make pointed note of Dean always sweating indicates that there is something to be inferred from his state as it is particularly unnatural. Almost as if said as an apart to the reader, always the sweating implies that this is a regular occurrence for Dean, caused by a habit which he indulges in habitually and not commonly caused by dancing alone. The use of pouring and splashing certainly does not portray health: it is not healthy for Dean to perspire to the extent that sweat is [lying] actually in pools at his feet . Here, actually is slightly misplaced for spoken fluency, it would be more fitting before the verb. However, the word now puts emphasis on actually in pools , which accentuates the alarm-bells which begin to sound upon unpacking this short phrase and its unnatural subject. As opposed to a functional bodily response to heat, we see Dean s body behaving in a way which would suggest that he is uncomfortable, suffering, feverish and unwell. His extreme sweating reflects the excess of hedonism he is pursuing, and the negative consequences of this pursuit. In this element, as in the previous, there has been a metaphorical deterioration from pleasure into excess. This metaphorical line could also be interpreted contextually, fitting with American society during the late nineteen-forties. The separation between the rigid, square suburban landscape of American society and the jazz-loving, drug using, pleasure seeking, hedonistic lifestyle of the Beats generation, was something extremely poignant in the lives of Kerouac and his friends. Tempted to cross this normative social boundary, they spent their time travelling and living freely, leading a life in direct opposition to expectations of the time. Here, Dean is pushed over the line from safe enjoyment to something more intense and potentially dangerous, which mirrors the change many other followers of the Beats generation made.

Delving further into this extract, bodies begin to take on yet another ill-boding framework. The concept of decaying bodies, mainly through the use of adjectives, plays a vital part in angling the reader s perception of pleasure and excess. While the frivolities surrounding the characters are light-hearted and jovial, descri ptions of crooked and spindly figures cast the shadow of a heavy atmosphere of decline. The bodies of the young hornman and the old hornman are both depicted as wasting-away, gook-eyed , shrivelled and entranced . The hornman is motionless , sitting in front of an untouched drink , signifying death and loss. The concept of a living person being absolutely motionless evokes unease and perhaps even panic. The phrase his hands hanging at his sides till they almost touched the floor, his feet outspread like lolling tongues is laden with debilitation, feebleness and collapse. The alliterative use of hands hanging draws attention to the strange position the man is taking, reinforced by the metaphor of his feet like lolling tongues . This image is so parodic of death that it almost becomes comical when considered against the background of the raucous celebrations surrounding it.

The hornman becomes ever more significant as Kerouac provides us with a slightly more in-depth look at his thoughts: something which isn t afforded to every character. [A]bsolute weariness and entranced sorrow and what-all was on his mind: a man who knocked himself out every evening and let the others put the quietus to him in the night . The picture painted of the hornman is one of intense apathy. He is drained of life and allows his surroundings to simply move on without him. We assume that to [knock] himself out every evening he must consume alcohol in excess, possibly with the addition of other substances, and yet his glass remains untouched . He is so frazzled and prostrated by drinking that he is unable to lift the glass to drink any more, his pursuit is over, his energy spent. The depth to which we see into the mind of the hornman stretches far enough that we begin to conceive him as a reflection of a real experience, perhaps a real experience of Kerouac s. The choice of the simile in the phrase everything swirled around him like a cloud gives us a clear link to the writers own experience of alcoholism shortly before his death, when he became dependent on others and was no longer able to participate in his surroundings. The background swirled around him like a cloud is personal by nature, entailing that Kerouac knows himself how it feels to be like the hornman, living in absolute weariness and entranced sorrow and what-all was on his mind . Certainly, we see the effects of the excessive and overtly transgressive and risky lifestyle that both men appear to have led personified in the hornman. He is a caricature, a portrait of the product of excessive, hedonistic freedom.

Fittingly, the final definitive notion of excess comes at the end of the extract. In no signs of failing energy or willingness to call anything a day there lies a comment on the outcast generation of Kerouac s America: those who lived outside of picket-fenced suburbia. In their pursuit of freedom, Kerouac and his friends, much like Sal and his, showed no signs of failing energy. Their excessive lifestyle, their drugs, jazz and relentless pursuit of freedom, made the whole room of domesticated, boxed-in Americans shiver nervously.