Written assingment Week 3

Ana María Rey Grajales

Code number: 201922987

Compare the journeys of Kerouac and Ginsberg. What are they running
toward/from?

Sal Paradise, the main character from On the Road (1957), from Jack Kerouac,
yearns for adventure; he yearns to discover life’s wonders and how to live life to the fullest.
Dean Moriarty’s radically different lifestyle entices the narrator for it represents what Sal
believes that the Western life is: freedom to be himself and enjoy life. However, after being
for months on the road, exposed to starvation and other ways of suffering, Sal’s restlessness
reflected that life’s pleasures became dull to him too fast.
From then on, he envied the people who seemed to be content with their life, and he
always recognized himself in those who seemed hopeless about ever finding happiness and
life’s meaning. When the United States has no thrill left for Sal, and hence visits Mexico,
he realizes that that country’s wilderness is the end of the road that he’s been travelling.
The main character’s return to New Jersey marks the end of his reckless search for emotion
and finally gives him time to reflect upon his experiences.

In Howl (1955-56), by Allen Ginsberg, the author seems to be running away from
an invisible force that has drawn society to the miserable state described in the poem. This
force is the one that he will later mention as Moloch, and its characteristics suggest that the
cruelness within it is able to drive anyone insane. Beyond its features, one may assume that
Moloch is not something that appeared on its own, but that it was created by a life of
excesses, and a crave for freedom, that shortly after it began, it run out of human control,
and now it haunts the most vulnerable of our kind. The poem depicts the feeling that Sal
Paradise had when he could not find any joy or meaning on his life. The people from the
poem seem to be working to achieve what they expect from their life, but how meaningful
are their goals?
 The poem portrays a specific moment of the exercise of free will, a moment in
which someone realizes the chaos within society, and that person desires to run away from
the aftermath. Moreover, the novel is not just about Sal Paradise’s, but the whole
experience that a person goes through due to their desire to get loose from inhibitions, and
thus embrace the control over their destiny. Maybe both literary pieces aim to support the
idea that there is a need of control, a need of peace, that life can be enjoyed without any
rush.