Dean as Sal's guide in the search for enlightenment in Jack Kerouac's on the road.

Abstract

On the Road is Jack Kerouac's most representative book and also one of the most emblematic books of a postwar American literary generation of poets and novelists known as the Beat Generation. The main characters, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, are the gears that move the machinery of the book. Therefore, the present literary analysis attempts to shed light on the dynamics of friendship and self-discovery throughout their travels in search for enlightenment. This analysis is based on New Criticism, Psychological and Sociological critical approaches. These approaches, which date from a classical period in the U.S. literary criticism (1940‟s-1960‟s,) suggest the construction and development of a core theme resulting from a set of unified elements. The psyche of the characters and their social interactions will be examined.