Juan Pino Post 2

To begin the analysis of Kafka’s pillars in the novel by Jack Kerouac, the presence of the church pillar that Kafka alluded to in his stories is noticeable. In “On the Road”, Kerouac does not bring the church pillar forth in a traditional sense. The characters that represent the Beat Generation are not bound by a traditional moral code such as the bible. In “On the Road”, a key characteristic of the Beat Generation is that they are attempting to figure everything out. They explore new ways to represent God; they have a different mindset for everything that is spiritual. In other words, these characters that Kerouac has created are attempting to define God and the church and thus this specific Kafkaesque pillar affects them all differently.

            A clear example of this is Sal who finds God in travelling. “I drove through South Carolina and beyond Macon, Georgia, as Dean, Marylou, and Ed slept. All alone in the night I had my own thoughts and held the car to the white line in the holy road. (Part 2, Ch. 6, P. 13) What a Catholic man may find in Church, Sal finds on the road. Now for the second part of Kafka’s theory, which states that the pillars contradict each other: If the average person were to take up Sal’s way of thought and go on the road like Sal does, with no goals and for simple joy of the journey, then the family would almost certainly cut that person off. It is simply too much of a burden to have someone leeching off you like that, enjoying what is an extended vacation that they call a way of life. In the end, for this situation, the church and family’s interests collide and are not one and the same. 

            Another example of untraditional form of church in On the Road comes along with Dean Moriarty. Dean finds