Revised Outline

In On the Road, many of Dostoevsky's ideas and theories can be found in On the Road.  This helps to show and explain why Sal and his gang of friends go against the grain of society and form their own generation, the “beat” generation.

1.  One of Dostoevsky's ideas is the fact that human actions cannot be mathematically calculated.  In this narrative this idea is clearly expressed.  

A.  Their reckless behavior when it comes to money.  They constantly spend money at clubs, drinks, and women when they should be saving it for food, clothes, gas, etc.

B.  Hitchhiking in general is dangerous.  Now, it may have taken place in a different time, but I’m still sure there has always been a risk in this activity.

C.  They produce no rational plan for a future.  They live life in the moment with no regard for a retirement or to look ahead in some way.

D.  If humans were always rational, you would think they would be friendly toward their families and keep them in the loop at least for money reasons.  Yet Sal and Dean have no connection to them, and refuse to listen to their advice on jobs and how to setup a stable lifestyle.

2.  Sal finds his ordinary life that is stable is boring and wants a change.  His journey is his attempt to destruct the walls that society has put up to justify the stable lifestyle.  He proves that living on the edge is possible and there isn’t really a need to live life like his parents.   

A.  In the beginning of the novel he talks about how everything was dead.  He wanted to try something different that was considered normal.

B.  He talks about Dean, and that he was a man of mystery.  Normally, people say to choose wise friends, because friends define you.  Yet he chooses to be with Dean, for some unexplainable reason.  This is that wall he is breaking down.  He is looking past what he was taught, and defining his own life.  

C.  When he meets Terry he starts to want to drift back to the Walls of family and normal life.  The walls draw us in because they are attractive and secure.  Even Sal, who has pushed away from every wall he has known reconciles and binds himself again for a short time with Terry.  he eventually realizes the relationship won’t bring happiness for them both and leaves everything behind once again leaving the walls of society behind.  

3.  Sal’s relationship with Dean is important in the book because it validates Sal’s existence.  Sal’s previous relationships didn’t leave him feeling validated, but lonely and unhappy.  Dean’s crazy adventures and love for telling stories make Sal feel alive and apart of something bigger than himself.

A.  Sal mentions in the beginning that he heard about Dean and was interested in him because he was different.  People who are different often make us act differently and think outside of our “boxes”.  This gives us a chance to experience new things and live life differently.

B.  To shorten this outline I am going to summarize what I will do with this section.  I want to discuss a few of Dean and Sal’s adventures, and show how they make Sal live life on the edge.  These actions themselves make Sal feel all the more alive and validate his existence, something his previous life and relationships couldn’t do.  When you are working forever and ever, at the end of the day you feel dead.  In order to counteract and validate yourself, you go out and do something fun.  Sal’s relationship with Dean is exactly what this is, a break from reality to ease the mind and enjoy life a little bit.

4.  In Dostoevsky's writings he mentions how the journey is often times more important than the destination.  This story is one huge narrative that exemplifies this idea.

A.  Sal’s first trip is to get to Remi, yet he has no idea or money to really get there.  The journey to Remi is where the real fun and excitement take place.

B.  On Sal’s big journey with Dean, they keep the trip going even after they reach their final destinations.  This is because they enjoy the in between and uncertainty of the road far more than the ending of the trip.  They would rather keep hopping between cities than spend that time in one place because the journey is where the fun’s at.  

     

Sharon's Extended Outline

Thesis: Many of Dostoyevsky’s ideas from “Notes from the Underground” manifest in Kerouac’s On the Road, explaining the role inherent human nature has in why Dean and Sal act the way they do.

Outline:

I.                   Man is self-interested in only himself; everything he does is to further his own experience.

a.       Dean needs Sal –that’s the only reason he stays with him

                                                                          i.      Sal is the educated one.

1.      The first time Dean scouts out Sal, he does so because he had no other place to live, and he wanted Sal to show him how to write.

                                                                        ii.      Dean needs Sal’s resources/money.

1.      Always gets Sal a job so he can work for money for them to travel around together.

2.      Stops by Sal’s friends’ houses just to pick up money and then continue on the road again –Sal funds their adventures.

b.      Sal leeches off the experiences Dean finds himself in.

                                                                          i.      Always says that he can’t keep up with Dean’s gang –that’s precisely why he needs Dean as a way to get into the ‘impulsive’ group.

                                                                        ii.      He was a writer, and needed new experiences – Dean was the inspiration - “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” (5)

                                                                      iii.      He wanted something new and refreshing –“My life hanging around the campus had reached the completion of its cycle” (6).

1.      “Somewhere along the lines, I knew there’d be girls, visions, everything…would be handed to me…” (7)

2.      Sal knows Dean can ‘fix him up’ with the girls.

c.       “He was conning me and I knew it, and he knew I knew, but I didn’t care and we got along fine” (4)

II.                Don’t follow rationale or protect themselves against self-harm.

a.       Dean and Sal continually embark on adventures even when they know it’s completely against logic.

                                                                          i.      Travel with hitchhikers they don’t know/risking their lives in the case that there is no one to bring them anywhere.

                                                                        ii.      Keep ‘foolishly squandering’ (29) the money at clubs even though they know they should save it.

                                                                      iii.      They almost die a couple of times and leave their unprotected families behind, but still make the trip.

b.      Sal constantly leaves behind everything just for Dean.

                                                                          i.      In the first half of the book, he drops all opportunities for an adventure (like the circus offer) because he wants to follow Dean specifically.

                                                                        ii.      Abandons his old/real friends, like Chad and Roland Major, because he’d rather be w. Dean.

c.       Don’t listen to their families and go against their better judgment.

                                                                          i.      The first time Sal leaves, his aunt tells him not to and that Dean would get into trouble, but Sal still leaves.

III.             Impulsive v. Cautious – Seeing only one side of the argument and acting v. Being too smart to act at all

a.       Dean = impulsive

                                                                          i.      Keeps acting on whim because he is so limited by the wall of adventure and life that he doesn’t stop to think or over worry, like Sal does.

b.      Sal = Too cautious

                                                                          i.      But he changes over the course of the book - that’s why Dean is his guide to live life on the edge.

                                                                        ii.      Taking ‘gambles’ during his on-the-road life instead of living conservatively, as in the beginning.

IV.             The journey matters more than the destination.

a.       Dean and Sal keep heading off with a final destination in mind, but don’t care how they get there. They enjoy the ‘during’ aspect, and are afraid to see the end of it –stops the excitement and danger.

b.      The people they meet –they don’t mind never seeing them again, it’s all about the “then and there”.

c.       During his first trip, Sal sets off without any idea of how to get to Remi –just leaves with some money.

Alexa Ferrer Extended Outline

To what extent are Dean, Sal, and the rest of the gang from the "beat generation" described in On The Road trying to run from Kafka's 3 pillars of society?

Thesis: In an attempt to escape the reality of society, the Beat Generation found it most effective to reject Kafka's 3 institutions by staying on the road. The only worries the characters of On the Road faced went back to one or more of the institutions, and their solution was always to run away and keep running.

1)    State

a)    The police constantly being brought up in a negative light

i)      "Them goddam cops can’t put no flies on my ass!" (I.3.5)

ii)    Many people on the road, not only Sal and Dean, who had become part of this beat generation looked at cops in a negative way.

iii)   At one point Remy even gets Sal a job as a security job only to further ruin the reputation of law enforcers. He never stayed sober on the job and spoke about the police’s interests as only being to meet quota to avoid being fired.

iv)   The old cop that Sal talks to reminisces in his old days where all the cops used to abuse the prisoners and take advantage of their power.

b)    Running away from the law

i)      “A tall, lanky fellow in a gallon hat stopped his car on the wrong side of the road and came over to us; he looked like a sheriff. We prepared our stories secretly. He took his time coming over. "You boys going to get somewhere, or just going?" We didn’t understand his question, and it was a damned good question.” (I.3.18)

ii)    In addition to showing Sal’s fear and anxiety when it came it law enforcement, it emphasizes that the gang never had a clear destination.

c)    No sense of stability in terms of a job/taxes/income

d)    No respect for the law

i)      Remy and Sal were constantly drunk on the job as security guards.

ii)    Remy would steal food and justify it by saying, ‘"You know what President Truman said," Remi would say. "We must cut down on the cost of living.’” ((I.11.62)

e)    No sense of order or continuity

2)    Family

a)    Focus on Dean and his back and forth marriages

i)      Dean falls madly in love with Marylou again but as soon as she starts to treat him the way he treats her he refers to her as a whore.

b)    Cannot stand still with one woman

i)      “For to him sex was the one and only holy and important thing in life, although he had to sweat and curse to make a living and so on.”

ii)    Sal says this about Dean to show that his main priority had nothing to do with any of the three institutions of society. Promiscuity fails to fit the ideal image of society.

c)    Once he has a family he destroys it without hesitation

d)    Many people from the beat generation use their family for money to get on the road as soon as possible

e)    All Sal really has is his aunt

f)      Everyone cheats on their significant others

3)    Religion

a)    It is almost as if Dean is Sal’s religion.

i)      Sal always uses the word “holy” to describe things about Dean.

(1)  Sex was holy

(2)  “Holy lightening” that Sal saw in Dean’s eyes whenever he would go into one of his frenzies about talking about life and his “visions.”

ii)    Sal refers to Dean as “the new kind of American saint.” To Sal, a saint was someone who had no sense of the three pillars that made up society. The new kind of saint was someone who walked to their own beat, followed no rules, and cared for no one but himself.

iii)   “Dean laughed. For years he had been chief prophet of that gang and now they were learning his technique.”

iv)   Sal also describes Big Ed as a holy man, thought the qualities he possesses would be looked down upon when analyzed using Kafka’s idea of society.

b)    Although Dean does believe in God he lives his life in a way that opposes all aspects of following religion and what man has composed religion to be. For Dean, faith is between him and God and not considered as a part of society, which he constantly is trying to escape.

c)    Church is avoided while on the road therefore there is no sense of faith

d)    Always searching for something greater than life while straying off the typical norms of society

Juan Pino - extended outline

Kafka’s Pillars in On the Road

1. Through his work Kafka meticulously developed his ideas concerning society and its system. 
1. Kafka’s reasoning for the way society works narrows down to three separate institutions: church, state, and family. 
1. Discuss idea that institutions are separate
2. Discuss how institutions are connected
1. contradict each other
2. work off of each other
2. The church aspect of Kafka’s theory
1. Provide real life examples to clarify
3. State aspect of Kafka’s theory
1. Provide real life examples to clarify
4. Family aspect of Kafka’s theory
1. provide real life examples to clarify
2. Presence of Church
1. Discuss forms of church - nontraditional
1. Sal’s spirituality - thoughts
2. Dean’s spirituality - using drugs to achieve insight
3. How their actions are affected by it
3. Presence of Family
1. Define family
2. Social interactions evolving into family
3. Discuss Sal’s experiences with his ever changing family
1. Terry
2. Remi Boncoeur 
3. Dean
4. Presence of State
1. Discuss the government in on the road
1. how it is portrayed
2. how sal and the others rebel/protest against
1. the idea of government
2. Acceptable social behavior

Ciara's Extended Outline

Thesis:

On the Road is told from a phallocentric point of view, leaving the women to be portrayed solely as objects of disposable pleasure and entertainment. This objectification of women is only further reinforced by the hedonistic approach on life encapsulated by the beatnik generation.  This inferior treatment can be analyzed in the characters of Camille, Marylou, Terry, and Walter’s Wife.

Outline:

1. Objectification of Camille by Dean and the beats

A.   Objectification of Camille by Dean through cheating

a)   “It was horrible to hear Camille sobbing.  We couldn’t stand it and went out to  buy beer.

b)   “Go right ahead she does that all the time”(Camille crying)

c)   [Beverly and I] are going to get married as soon as I can get divorce papers from Camille”

B.   Objectification of Camille by Sal

a)   “Camille was a relief after Marylou; a well-bred polite young woman”

b)   “I had no idea what was wrong except perhaps Dean had driven her mad after all”

c)   “He didn’t leave her, she kicked him out”4

2.Objectification of Marylou by Dean, Sal, and the rest of the beats

A.   Objectification of Marylou by Dean through cheating

a)   “at one sharp he rushes from Marylou to Camille- of course neither one of them knows what’s going on”

b)   “He’s going to…get the necessary papers for their divorce.  Marylou’s all for it, but she insists on banging in the interim.

c)   “he wanted me to work out with Marylou. I didn’t ask him why because I knew he wanted to see what Marylou was like with another man”

B.   Dean through his values

a)   “He wanted absolute proof that she was a whore”

b)   “For to him sex was the one and only holy and important thing in life”

c)   decided the thing to do was to have Marylou make breakfast and sweep the floor

C.  Objectification of Marylou by Sal

a)   Marylou was a pretty blonde with immense ringlets of hair like a sea of golden tresses

b)   “Outside of being a sweet little girl, she was awfully dumb”

c)   “Marylou had not slept since Denver.  I thught she looked older and more beautiful now”

3. Objectification of Terry by Sal and her family

A.   Sal’s description of Terry

a)   “breasts stuck out straight and true”

b)   “her little flanks looked delicious”

c)   “her hair was long and lustrous black”

B.   Sal’s First Thoughts of Terry

a)   she’s a “common little hustler”

b)   “I got mad and realized I was pleading with a dumb little Mexican wench and I told her so”

c)   “Before I knew it I picked up her red pumps and hurled them at the bathroom door and told her to get out”

C.  Terry’s Family’s Thoughts about Her

a)   “They called her a whore because she left her husband”

b)   “The old man growled. The brothers kept right on yodeling. The mother was silent.”

4. Objectification of Walter's Wife by Sal, Dean, and Walter

A.   “Sweetest Woman in the World…She never asked Walter where he’d been, what time it was, nothing”- Sal

B.   “Walter’s wife smiled and smiled as we repeated the insane thing all over again. She never said a word”

C.  Dean said, “Now you see, man, there’s real woman for you. Never a harsh word, never a complaint, or modified; her old man can come in any hour of the night with anybody and have talks in the kitchen and drink the beer and leave any old time.”

D.  “This is a man, and that’s his castle.”- Walter trains her to be subservient

E.   Present a good woman as a woman with no self-respect