1.

My favorite quote that can be used to sum up the whole idea of the Beat Generation
comes from Ginsberg himself, “Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the
madness.” This short quote gives a pretty good outline of what the Beat Generation
and its proponents were all about. They were slaves to their perceived notions of
freedom, be it sexual, political, or personal freedom. For a brief time in US history the
Beat Generation personified the animalistic part of the US citizen, the citizen who was
not afraid to be a little mad, searching for a higher meaning while not abiding the
prescribed laws, both political, and natural. They would engage in drug-addled
séances and alcoholic fervor in order to achieve their fulfillment, and to put it in the
most blunt way, they were people who were not afraid to live their lives in opposition
to which was considered normal in the time when sexual, racial, and political
oppression was most noticeable.
2. Journey is probably the biggest theme encountered in the novel, visible in the title of
Kerouac’s work. The journey undertaken is both spiritual and physical in its core,
depicting a quest for fulfillment which never can be actually achieved no matter how
hard a person tries. Physically, the journey spans the entire US, and can be viewed as a
sightseeing novel woven with subtle talks of how a person tries to fulfill himself by
running away from himself, in the end trying to find both love for himself and others,
as well as freedom, all the while being in fundamental conflict the capitalist tendencies
of the time.
3. Not only does the persona of Old Bull, a person who in the latter part of his life
actively engages in drug-taking and is openly mad. You can’t really tell if that is the
drugs talking, or if that is who he really is. The fact that he is like that only
corroborates the idea of the novel and the Beat Generation that the madness visible in
the novel does not come from any drug, any alcoholic beverage or trauma; it is simply
a thing that defines you. Old Bull is seen as some kind of a guru, a person who
rejected all of society’s gifts in order to work on his art, and to support his freedom
through madness. On the other hand, the crisis of capitalism is visible in the various
jobs Sal takes on during his physical journey through the US, never being able to stay
in one place for too long, or even better, take on a long-standing job which would
support him and others by his side. Partly this is out of the capitalistic tendency to
overcrowd the workplace, partly because of the fact he simply couldn’t find himself
belonging into the common people.
4. Dean is the person with whom Sal is completely enamored with, but not in a romantic,
or even sexual way, even though his thoughts and perception of Dean can sometimes
be ambiguous. Dean’s devil-may-care nature and recklessness both appall and attract
Sal, who desperately wants to be like Dean, but at the same time is horrified by how
much of a destructive influence on him he is. He constantly defends him in his
wrongdoings even though he is fully aware of how bad of an influence he can be.
Dean is also the main reason Sal embarks on the road, and every time they meet in the
novel and spend time together, it brings the best and the worst in them.
5. The IT in On the Road is brought up only in two instances; when Dean speaks about
God, and when Dean speaks about time. It can be said that these two things, even
though seemingly they have nothing with each other, are mutually not exclusive. God
can be seen as some kind of an ideal, a perfect thing towards which a person should
strive for, but someone’s God can be anything they long for and worship, be it
physical or non-physical. Time, on the other hand, can’t be tamed and can’t be
 stopped. So, I would say that when Dean speaks about IT, what he really speaks about
is that IT is something he constantly longs for, an ideal of something he himself is not
really sure what it is, all the while realizing that he simply does not have the time to
achieve that illusive ideal.
6. The hardest question in my opinion is what is my road. I would say there are several
roads that constantly alternate, because I’m still figuring out my destination. I’m
trying to deal with the trip as smoothly as possible and that’s why I sometimes miss
the best views, because I tend to stick to my comfort zone. For now, I want to travel
surrounded by the people I enjoy spending time with. My goal is making sure the
destination, whichever it turns out to be, is worth the trip.