To what extent are the people from the "beat generation" described in On The Road trying to run from Kafka's 3 pillars of society? By trying to escape from the norms of everyday life, going on the road is a way to escape from family, religion, and state. Because they are in a different city everyday there is no time for family, faith, or state. The only remaining aspect of state is the occasional cop that stops Dean and the others for speeding, and even then the characters show full resentment towards any type of authority.
Compare the characters from the book to The Stranger lecture about reaching clarity. While Sal and the gang are on the road they engage in every possible activity to reach "clarity": drugs, sex, alcohol, speed etc. Their refusal to settle down represents a resentment towards the distortions that come with settle down. By constantly being on the road and worry free, they've entered an extended state of clarity...until things get a little complicated on the way.
Is On the Road a reflection of Sal's adventure throughout the whole thing or his fascination in Dean and his life?
While Sal claims to be looking for his own adventure he seems to be following Dean around.
How different or alike is the Beat Generation with our generation and use examples from Kafka's three institutions to answer.
Alexa, I like your first question about escaping the pillars of society because it gives you quite some room to explore with the topic. I feel that it would help, though, if you could even make it more specific by perhaps focusing on one character in terms of the three pillars, or maybe pinpoint one pillar to focus on for multiple people. For the state one, I agree with the occasional cops, but also the instances where Sal and Dean steal to get by or how they are constantly employed then unemployed because they get bored with order and continuity. I feel like religion would be the tough one, as there is not much mention of it, but that could be exactly what you write; the “Beat Generation” is all about escaping convention so religion is not extremely present.
ReplyDeleteThe clarity question is good too, but you would probably need to pick the right characters to analyze and compare with each other. I like how you point out that their clarity is present until near the end.