On the Road (1957) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Sal Paradise: The narrator and the protagonist; a young writer who lives with his aunt in New Jersey. He leaves home to cross the United States with his buddy, Dean Moriarty, always looking for parties, women, drugs, and good jazz. Based on Jack Kerouac himself.
• Dean Moriarty: Accompanies Sal Paradise in his travels across America; an object of admiration to his friends because of his energetic and crazy lifestyle. He's addicted to women, drugs, alcohol, adventures, and intellectualism. During his travels, he always searches for his alcoholic father, who left him when he was young. During the book he gets involved with many women, such as Camille, Mary Lou, and Inez. This character was based on Neal Cassady, close friend of Jack Kerouac.
• Mary Lou: Dean's first wife, a pretty "dumb" blond from Colorado.
• Remi Boncoeur: An old friend of Sal's from prep school. Remi, a flamboyant Frenchman, is a petty thief and gambler, constantly in debt but extravagant and sometimes gallant and generous.
• Camille: Dean's second wife, for whom he divorces Marylou. Loyal Camille lives in San Francisco with her and Dean's children.
• Galatea Dunkel: Ed Dunkel's serious, disapproving newlywed wife.
• Stan Shephard: An enthusiastic friend of Tim Gray's who goes to Mexico with Dean and Sal. Stan has a controlling grandfather he is trying to escape.
• Terry: A pretty Mexican girl with whom Sal spends fifteen days in California. She comes from a family of grape-pickers in Sabinal, has a son, and is trying to escape a husband who beat her.
• Lee Ann: Remi Boncoeur's sulky girlfriend.
• Carlo Marx: A good friend of Sal and Dean's, a brooding poet who is sensual and energetic. The fictional alter ego of the poet Allen Ginsburg.
• Tim Gray: A friend of Sal's in Denver.
• Eddie: hitchhiker Sal meets on the road; reminds Sal of his family in New York.
• Roy Johnson: A friend of Sal's who chauffeurs Dean and Sal in San Francisco..
• Dean: He's full of life.
• Victor: The kind, polite Mexican man; Sal, Dean, and Stan's guide in Gregoria.
• Hassel: A lost friend whom Sal and Dean seek everywhere they go
• Rickey: Terry's wild, drunk, happy-go-lucky brother whom Sal meets in Sabinal.
• Ray Rawlins: Part of Sal's circle of friends who rejected Dean and Carlo Marx.
• Inez: Dean's third wife, a sexy brunette he meets in New York.
• Johnny: Terry's seven-year-old son.
• Ponzo: Terry and Rickey's friend, a manure-seller who smells like it. Big and eager to please, Ponzo is in love with Terry.
• Sam Brady: One of the member's of Dean's old gang. When it splits, he becomes a more distant and disapproving associate.
• Slim: Add a description of this character.
• Marie
• Roland Major: A friend with whom Sal lives briefly in Denver. Major is a Hemingway-esque writer who is scornful of "arty" types but snobby himself, often talking to Sal about Europe and fine wines.
• Old Bull Lee: "Long, lean, strange and laconic," a long-time friend of Sal and Carlo, the teacher of their group. A traveler, writer, and junkie. The fictional alter ego of William S Burroughs.
• Alfred
• Shelton
• Clint
• Ian Macarthur
• Jane
• Lucille: A married woman in New York whom Sal wants to marry for awhile.
• Wall
• Chad King: Sal's friend from Denver; young, slim, blond and soft-spoken. He is interested in philosophy, anthropology, and pre-historic Indians.
• Yass
• Slim Gaillard: A friend of Dean's in San Francisco, Slim goes to jazz joints and adds the suffix "orooni" to everything he says.
• Tom Snark
• Henry
• Hudson
• Frankie
• Ed Dunkel: A tall, affable friend of Sal and Dean's. Not too bright, he'll do anything Dean says.
• Gomez
• Davenport
• Tommy Snark
• Dorothy
• Mrs. Paradise: She is tolerant, supportive, and kind. Sal lives at her house in Paterson, New Jersey, and Long Island. Throughout Sal's wanderings, she sends him money.

Show all 46 characters

Quotes edit see section history

• “"I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"”

• “"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. "”

• “"He liked cats, especially the ones that squealed when you held 'em over the bath tub."”

  Kerouac

• “It was as hot as the inside of a baker's oven on a June night in New Orleans.”

• “We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked at each other for the last time.”

• “Gad, what was I doing three thousand miles from home? Why had I come here?”

• “The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death.”

  Sal Paradise

• “Pero entonces bailaban por las calles como peonzas enloquecidas, y yo vacilaba tras ellos como he estado haciendo toda mi vida mientras sigo a la gente que me interesa, porque la única gente que me interesa está loca, la gente que está loca por vivir, loca por hablar, loca por salvarse, con ganas de todo al mismo tiempo, la gente que nunca bosteza ni habla de lugares comunes, sino que arde, arde como fabulosos cohetes amarillos explotando igual que arañas entre las estrellas y entonces se ve estallar una luz azul y todo el mundo suelta un <<Ahhh>>.”

  Jack sobre sus amigos

• “"- ¿Qué será de nosotros cuando muramos?- Le pregunte en cierta ocasión.- Cuando uno se muere se muere, eso es todo - respondió. " <pp. 172>”

• “Era triste ver cómo su elevada figura se perdía en la oscuridad mientras nos alejábamos, lo mismo que había pasado con las otras figuras de Nueva York y Nueva Orleans: se las veía inseguras bajo los inmensos cielos y todo lo que les rodeaba sumergido en la negrura. ¿Adónde ir? ¿Qué hacer?¿Para qué hacerlo...? Dormir. Pero nuestro grupo de locos se lanzaba hacia delante. <pp. 197>”

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• because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

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• I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that’s why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.

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• Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk—real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.

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• I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.

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• I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

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• They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining.

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• We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked at each other for the last time.

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• LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there’s a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.

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• A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.

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• What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? —it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

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Show all 20 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Denver
• New York
• Frisco
• San Francisco
• America
• Texas
• Chicago
• California
• Mexico City
• Nebraska
• Iowa
• New Orleans
• Hollywood
• Virginia
• Colorado
• Montana
• Arizona
• Bakersfield
• Washington
• Pennsylvania
• Cadillac
• Mill City
• New Jersey
• Sabinal
• Illinois
• Tucson
• Paterson
• Gregoria
• Fresno
• Missouri
• Indiana
• Mississippi
• San Antonio
• Algiers
• Chad King
• New Mexico
• Monterrey
• Hingham
• Alabama
• Wyoming
• Kansas
• Nevada
• Houston
• Italy
• Los Angeles
• Coast
• Long Island
• Ohio
• Paris
• Fredericksburg
• Oakland
• Oregon

Show all 52 settings

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• tea: marijuana
• benny addict.”: someone who is addicted to taking bennies- a benny is an amphetamine tablet taken as a stimulant

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• road: escape, endlessness, karma, energy, life, America
• friendship: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Light in August, and followed by The Maltese Falcon.

Preceded by The Sun Also Rises, and followed by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Preceded by Tropic of Cancer, and followed by Lookout Cartridge.

Preceded by The Order of Things, and followed by The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.

Preceded by A Passage to India, and followed by To Kill a Mockingbird.

Preceded by Someplace To Be Flying, and followed by Heart of Darkness.

Preceded by Magician, and followed by The Godfather.

Preceded by Lord of the Flies, and followed by Brave New World.

Preceded by The Count of Monte Cristo, and followed by Jude the Obscure.

Preceded by Les Misérables, and followed by Frankenstein.

Preceded by Speak, and followed by The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Preceded by Homo Faber, and followed by Pnin.

Preceded by Gone With the Wind, and followed by To the Lighthouse.

Preceded by American Gods, and followed by East of Eden.

Preceded by The Pearl, and followed by Treasure Island.

Preceded by The Rainmaker, and followed by The Magician's Nephew.

Preceded by The Stranger, and followed by The Devil Wears Prada.

Preceded by Chocolat, and followed by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Jack Kerouac (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Howard Cunell (Introduction)
2. Penny Vlagopoulos (Introduction)
3. George Mouratidis (Introduction)
4. Joshua Kupetz (Introduction)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• BBC's Big Read (April 2003, #90)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Book Review, Folio Society: When Jack Kerouac’s On the Road first appeared in 1957, readers instantly felt the beat of a new literary rhythm. A fictionalised account of his own journeys across America with his friend Neal Cassady, Kerouac’s beatnik odyssey captured the soul of a generation and changed the landscape of American fiction for ever.

Movie Connections edit see section history

• On The Road (IMDb): 2012

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books Influenced by This Book edit see section history

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history