The Objectification of Women in “on the Road” a Feminist Criticism
Michael Prather
12/4/08
Essay #2
The Objectification of Women in “On the Road” A Feminist Criticism In On the Road there is an ever-present objectification of women. As a result, the woman loses her human qualities and can be compared to an inanimate object. There are several ways in which this objectification takes form in the novel. It is achieved through the act of gazing at women. The woman can also be used as a means to achieve something else, in this case sensual pleasure. Since the culture described in the novel is highly hedonistic, pleasure in terms of sex is crucial to Sal and his friends. Treating women as objects also implies to me that they are “replaceable” in the same way as items are obtained, used, disposed of and replaced. It is not the woman herself that matters for the characters, but any female who is able to give them enjoyment. Men, on the other hand, are irreplaceable to each other and have important inner lives. “The male gaze” is a term usually applied on gender studies. According to feminists the term suggests that the pleasure in looking is given to the active male subject while the woman is the passive object. Women are depicted as men want them to be, instead of displaying their real characteristics. This gives an overly simplistic concept of feminism which divides women into “good girls” and “bad girls” implying that women are defined from this masculine point of view, rather than taking into account their own actions and varied personalities.
The concept of the male gaze can be applied directly to the book. In On the Road, Sal’s and Dean’s visual objectification of women can be argued to be a clear example of this sexist term. The narrator normally begins every characterization of a woman with a stereotype description of her physical appearance. It is obvious that when Marylou, Dean’s first wife, is introduced as “his beautiful little chick” (On The Road 7), she is given a typically objectifying label which implies that she is
12/4/08
Essay #2
The Objectification of Women in “On the Road” A Feminist Criticism In On the Road there is an ever-present objectification of women. As a result, the woman loses her human qualities and can be compared to an inanimate object. There are several ways in which this objectification takes form in the novel. It is achieved through the act of gazing at women. The woman can also be used as a means to achieve something else, in this case sensual pleasure. Since the culture described in the novel is highly hedonistic, pleasure in terms of sex is crucial to Sal and his friends. Treating women as objects also implies to me that they are “replaceable” in the same way as items are obtained, used, disposed of and replaced. It is not the woman herself that matters for the characters, but any female who is able to give them enjoyment. Men, on the other hand, are irreplaceable to each other and have important inner lives. “The male gaze” is a term usually applied on gender studies. According to feminists the term suggests that the pleasure in looking is given to the active male subject while the woman is the passive object. Women are depicted as men want them to be, instead of displaying their real characteristics. This gives an overly simplistic concept of feminism which divides women into “good girls” and “bad girls” implying that women are defined from this masculine point of view, rather than taking into account their own actions and varied personalities.
The concept of the male gaze can be applied directly to the book. In On the Road, Sal’s and Dean’s visual objectification of women can be argued to be a clear example of this sexist term. The narrator normally begins every characterization of a woman with a stereotype description of her physical appearance. It is obvious that when Marylou, Dean’s first wife, is introduced as “his beautiful little chick” (On The Road 7), she is given a typically objectifying label which implies that she is
Cited: Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. 1957. London: Penguin Books, 1972.