On The Road Analysis

A common theory about human nature is that people are not inherently good or inherently evil. They have their differences, and flaws, but they also have admirable characteristics as well. Many characters may seem to have an irresponsible nature, but there is usually a reason for these things, as well as motives and backstories that play a role in influencing the characters’ decisions. In On The Road by Jack Kerouac, Dean Moriarty is an example of one of these morally ambiguous characters. He has many traits that seem dispicable to the reader, but there is also proof that he has exceptional characteristics as well-such as his friendship with Sal and the others. Dean Moriarty can be shown as a morally ambiguous character through his nature and actions throughout the course of the novel. First and foremost, Dean is Sal’s friend, to the point where it becomes almost unnatural. Dean is the main reason Sal drops his own life and leaves to become part of Dean’s-the wild road, the different people, the hot, noisy love that stretches late into the night. Sal wants adventure, and he thinks that adventure is Dean Moriarty. His slight obsession with Moriarty is shown in the fact that the novel starts with Dean, and ends with him as well. To Sal, Dean is the person he wants desperately to be, and isn’t, but is the person he could become. Sal describes Dean early on in the novel as if he already knows him: “... he reminded me of some long-lost brother; the sight of his suffering bony face with the long sideburns and his straining muscular sweating neck made me remember my boyhood in those dye-dumps and swim-holes and riversides of Paterson and the Passaic. His dirty workclothes clung to him so gracefully... and in his excited way of speaking I heard again the voices of old companions and brothers... Dean’s intelligence was every bit as formal and shining and complete... and his ‘criminality was not something that sulked and sneered; it was a wild... overburst of American