Women in Jack Kerouacs On The Road
Women in Jack Kerouac’s On The RoadOn The Road: Women
In order to understand the role of women in Jack Kerouac’s novel, On The Road, the following three things must be considered. Men need women to nurture them and support them. Secondly, women are angelic creatures that were to be admired for their beauty and the pleasures they can provide. Finally, although women are beautiful and necessities, they were treated like whores and sex objects by the men.
The men in On The Road are of the Beat Generation, moving from place to place and from girl to girl. Through living this lifestyle they often display disrespect and disregard for women, treating them as whores or sex objects. However, in reality, women are the nurturers and supporters of these men and represent commitment, which the boys lack. The women are necessities. These qualities are first seen through Sal’s Aunt who assisted Sal financially for his travels. In addition to the financial help, she was also there for a motherly nurturing figure. “My aunt bought groceries and cooked up a tremendous breakfast”(122). Lucille is another woman in the novel who represents similar virtues. Sal fell in love with her and viewed her to be someone he could actually consider for marriage. “In New York, I had been attending school and romancing around with a girl called Lucille, a beautiful Italian honey-haired darling that I actually wanted to marry”(116). This is one of the few times in Sal’s life that he expresses a desire for commitment and order in his life. “I want to marry a girl so I can rest my soul with her till we both get old. This can’t go on all the time – all this franticness and jumping around. We’ve got to go someplace, find something”(117). Although things did not work out for Sal and Lucille, the affair did bring out a side of Sal that we do not see often in On The Road.
Women are commonly presented as angelic figures that are admired for their beauty and the pleasures they can fulfill. Although the men do not always treat the women as angels they do perceive them to have angelic characteristics. Sal and Dean are often captivated and in “awe” by the beauty they see in women. One example of this is evident in Sal’s description of one of the farmer’s daughters. “The prettiest, shyest one hid far back in the field to watch and she had good reason because she was absolutely and finally the most beautiful girl Dean and I ever saw in all our lives. She was about sixteen, and had Plains Complexion like...
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