On the Road

Dean Moriarty—who is the novel’s main character as he becomes Sal’s best friend—is the product of a difficult childhood. He grew up with an alcoholic father and spent much of his youth in reform schools and jails. When Dean first arrives in New York, he wants to be a writer because he envies the lives of intellectuals like Chad King and Sal Paradise. Ironically, the writers come to envy and mimic Dean’s life rather than the other way around. Sal and Dean become good friends, hitting the road together and taking part in many adventures. Dean’s chaotic energy fascinates Sal. Dean delights in everything and everyone. After growing up with a father who mistreated him and spending much time in jail, devoid of stimulation, Dean knows how to find wonder in every part of the world and in every person. This mad enthusiasm for life is contagious and exhausting. Sal feels a need to spend time with Dean, who embodies an innate vivacity and beauty that Sal wants to express through his work. While Dean comes to New York to learn to write, he inspires writers to write differently. Dean becomes a muse rather than an artist, a person whose mere existence inspires other people to create art.

However, Dean’s existence far from wholly positive. He is a womanizer and a manipulator. As clear from his string of broken relationships around the country, he takes advantage of people. He borrows money, steals, and abandons people on a whim. Dean travels with Sal, leaving behind two wives and three children in his hedonistic pursuits. Only at the novel’s end, when Dean abandons Sal, does Sal realize that this is Dean’s character. He doesn’t mean to be a bad person, but a lifetime of neglect and abuse has left him unable to form long and lasting relationships. Ultimately, Dean becomes a tragic figure whose greatest qualities are his downfall: His chaotic, energetic lust for life eventually burns him out and leaves him alone. By the story’s end, Dean is barely coherent, and everyone he loves has abandoned him. Sal drives away, leaving Dean standing alone on a street corner. The fact that the man who inspired so many is now all on his own emphasizes the tragic nature of his existence.

A friend of Sal and Dean, Carlo Marx is a poet who forms a particularly strong bond with Dean. Carlo and Dean arrive in Denver before Sal, and their bond intensifies when they spend entire evenings engaged in long, intense, penetrating conversations that last until dawn. These conversations show Carlo’s attempts to reach a fundamental truth in the world. Like most people who become attached to Dean, however, the bond doesn’t last. Their intense friendship fizzles out, and they spend increasingly less time with each other. Sal notices that Carlo seems less fond of Dean, but he dismisses Carlo’s behavior as the eccentric behavior of a crazy poet. Ironically, Carlo’s detachment reveals the fundamental truth about all relationships with Dean, in that for all the fascination and the friendship, everyone is eventually tossed to the side. The friendship between Dean and Carlo is an early progenitor for the friendship between Dean and Sal; however, Carlo realizes the truth about Dean much more quickly.