The Search for Self and Identity in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road :: On The Road essays

 Quest for Identity in On the Road                  In Jack Kerouacs novel On the Road, the author tries to convey to the audience that everybody is by nature dishonest and morally deceitful. Morals are defined by ones religion, the laws of the country, or some combination of the two. Ones identity captures and plays out that individuals moral. My ethics follow the Christian beliefs, Texas state laws, and the laws of the United States. Although ones own morals give the bounce change, basic things such as stealing and murder are pervert and illegal by federal law. Numerous characters performed many acts proving this point such as Montana melt off, who says in order to get money, follow a man down an alley and rob him, or Dean, who never feels compunction for beating Mary Lou after a fight. These along with other characters give a counsel such actions that show that everyone is morally deceitful. In leave 1, Chapter 4, Sal tells Montana shorten that he only has enough money to buy some whiskey. Slim says to Sal, I know where you can get some.Where?Anywhere. You can always tomfoolery a man down an alley, cant you? ...I aint beyond doing it when I really fatality some dough. (27) At this early point in the novel, Sal is still count out who he is and what life is like on the road. He seems like a young naive schoolboy being bullied by an older, wiser kid. Slim knows what he is talking about because he has been on the road for some eon now. He has probably robbed quite a few people passim his experience on the road. This act is, by law, wrong and dishonest. In Part 2, chapter 6, while Dean, Mary Lou, Ed Dunkel, and Sal stopped at a throttle station on the way to New Orleans, Dunkel casually steals three packs of cigarettes. The way the narrator says it is that he stole them without even trying. He then dependableifies it by saying that they were fresh out (139). The language u sed is just so non-chalant, as if stealing was no big deal. Stealing, like robbing, is illegal and morally wrong. The part that is most disturbing is that Dunkel feels that stealing cigarettes is okay, that it is necessary for survival just like food or water system. Stealing food or water in order to survive can be justified, but not cigarettes.