Riding in Cars

A '49 Hudson

In Carole Gottlieb Vopat’s “Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road:’ A Re-Evaluation,” Vopat states that the characters in novel “are suspended from life and living” “in their cars…as if in a capsule hurtling coast-to-coast above the earth.” Like in other travel fictions, Kerouac’s figures travel to escape from their lives. In this manner, Sal, the protagonist, parallels Jake Barnes in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, for both lead meaningless lives. Yet unlike Jake, Sal is not searching for purpose but fleeing from it, running away from the responsibilities of life.

Cars, a motif, become the instrument for this break with identity, a way for Sal and his friends to live without establishing lasting connections to a place. This has particular resonance for Dean, who is obsessed with “midget auto races” (37). Dean “jumps and yells,” gets excited and even “hung-up” about the races. He watches a purposeless act: these midget cars, which are a means of travel, circle around, not traveling anywhere, thus not filling their function. The cars do not have an attachment to a place but simply cruise, tracing their steps with no reason over than to just drive, to just travel. Dean lives in a similar manner, running back and forth across the country without establishing lasting connections or generating meaning.

These cars are the only things of significance for Dean. Before journeying across the country, Dean works in a parking-lot, where he was “the most fantastic parking-lot attendant in the world,” moving in and out of one car, “sprinting like a track star” (6). In essence, he’s an expert at traveling, switching in and out of cars. It’s one thing he’s good at, as Sal notes that “he could handle a car under any circumstances” (115). When Dean is in a car, he feels in control—important. He describes an image he used to imagine when traveling in cars of “driving across the West” with an “immeasurably” long scythe that “had to curve over distant mountains, slicing off their tops, and reach another level to get at further mountains and at the same time clip off every post along the road” (196). When he’s in a car, he’s in control. He can shape the world, “slicing off” mountain tops and “clipp[ing] off every post,” giving him power that, in real life, he does not possess. He also imagines himself running “on foot along the car and at incredible speeds, sometimes ninety, ” a similar scenario (197). Both dreams give Dean a sense of identity, of being able to do the impossible, be strong and unstoppable. Cars are the only way he feels like he matters.

Dean, however, is reckless with cars, which demonstrates the his desire to live spontaneously. For example, he sees a ’49 Hudson for sale and rushes to buy it, even though in bankrupts him. He does not even stick with the Hudson but constantly switches cars throughout the book, unable to attach himself to one. Just as he cannot settle down, he cannot attach himself to one car. He steals cars and drives other people’s cars, often ruining them, as he does with a Cadillac. While driving it, he pushes “well over 100 miles an hour” and breaks the speedometer (214). Dean doesn’t just love cars; he loves going fast in cars, as it provides that sense of power. In the Cadillac, he goes so fast that “all the cars fell from us like dead flies,” a description that expresses this sense of superiority Dean feels in cars. They make them feel like he can triumph over other drivers, other people, giving him the illusion of importance. For someone whose life lacks meaning, this is the one way he can feel significant.