Sal’s life is so much more productive and full without
Dean. Part II begins with Sal telling
the reader that he has not seen Dean for over a year, and follows this up by
saying that he finished his book, went back to school, and spent time with his
family. Without Dean, Sal is able to
focus on his goals and ambitions; his maturity has progressed by leaps and
bounds in the last year. The same thing
happened when Sal met Terry. He settled
down with her as best he could, took on the responsibility as father of her
young one, and got a job to try and provide for her and her son. Dean is a bad influence on Sal, and as long
as he continues to show up at Sal’s front door with his maniacal behavior and
irrational ideas of adventure, Sal will never be able to truly progress.
Sal needs
to realize that Dean is using him. Whenever
he is in a bad situation, Dean uses Sal for food, money, and a place to
stay. Dean knows that Sal will always be
there to take care of him, no matter what, so the first person he thought of
when he went broke was Sal; however, Sal is so happy to see Dean and to know
that he has Dean’s attention that he never considers the real reason for Dean’s
visit.
I do not think that the sole purpose of Dean always going
back to Sal is because he wants room and board.
Dean also tries to use Sal for motivation. He sees that Sal just wants to settle down
with a wife and kids and a home, and I think Dean secretly wants this too;
however, Sal cannot sit still. He is
always looking for some way to be successful and to be the person he has always
wanted to be, but his decisions are illogical and adverse to his goals. In using Sal to advance his own life, Dean
just ends up dragging Sal’s life down to the gutter as well. Whenever Sal has his life together, Dean
comes rushing in and ruins whatever headway Sal has made. Before, I saw Dean as a harmless kid who just
wanted to have a little fun. Now, he is
scaring me a little. His behavior as he
drives around in his Hudson is analogous with that of a schizophrenic; if Dean
had a powerful influence on Sal’s behavior before, I am worried about how this
new behavior will affect Sal now.
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