After the end of the Second World War the United States fell into a state of conformity, the onset of the Cold War brought the Red Terror that spread and afflicted Culture American with obedience. As with any guideline or set of rules, there are those who will break them. Countercultures are made up of those who go against the mainstream and have values ​​that oppose the norms established by society. The Beat Generation was one of these countercultures that emerged in the 1950s as a result of the conformism established at that time. The Beat Generation consisted of important writers and literature that represented their alternative lifestyle. Jack Kerouac was one of these prominent writers during the Beat Generation. His book On the Road is a great example of showing readers the nonconformist lifestyle of a Beat. In this novel we follow narrator Sal Paradise, who travels with his personal hero Dean Moriarty on multiple occasions across the country on a happy-go-lucky road trip. After a first reading of On the Road one can simply consider it as the wanderings of an adolescent's imagination. This book is extremely fast-paced, hard to follow and spontaneous. However, by actively paying attention to the text, Kerouac throughout this novel uses the actions of his characters to show readers that there are deeper meanings behind these digressions. With a closer look at Jack Kerouac's On the Road one can become aware of how the frenzy of IT, the road, jazz, and the book itself are all paths to bring the book's theme of self-discovery present to the reader. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Before the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Black people in America faced an intense amount of racism and segregation throughout the United States. This segregation led African Americans to create their own subculture. Jazz music was a prominent type of music during the time On the Road takes place. It was a musical genre played and enjoyed largely by African Americans. This is interesting because Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, both white males, love this music with a passion. When Sal and Dean attend a show at a jazz club called Birdland, Dean shows how much love he has for the music and the musician who plays it. He states: “Here it is! It's him! Old God! Old God Shearing! YES! YES! YES!" And Shearing was aware of the madman behind him, he could hear Dean's every gasp and curse" (Page 128). Dean's fascination with jazz music is interesting because jazz is a type of music celebrated by African Americans and the the fact that Dean is white goes against the prejudices that white America had towards blacks. Sal and Dean went out of their way to find places that played bebop jazz, they interacted with African American culture in a friendly way as if they were African Americans themselves In a sense, Sal and Dean were breaking racial boundaries, but Kerouac also wanted to make people aware that this was something that all the Beats liked at that time. The presence of jazz music in Sal and Dean's lives also had something to do with the nonconformist nature around which their culture revolved. The common belief of American society was that the two races should remain separate Sal and Dean did not conform to the creed of segregation. Although they often referred to blacks as "niggers", for example when Sal states, "A six-foot-tall skinny nigger woman was rolling her bones against the man's doorbell, and he hit it" (Page 198) . This was because words like Negro were politically correct at the time. THEtwo Beatniks give jazz music and its artists this sense of mysticism. Throughout the novel, jazz is only praised, not a negative word is uttered about the genre. Dean often refers to jazz musician George Shearing as God, when he says "God's empty chair",... Diose was gone; it was the silence of his departure” (Page 128). The mysticism that Dean applies to Jazz is comparable to the mysticism that Sal applies to Dean. Dean is fascinated by and idolizes George Shearing. Dean calling Shearing God is a prime example of how Dean mystifies Shearing. George Shearing is Dean's hero just as Dean is Sal's hero. Both Sal and Dean are energized and fascinated by the actions of their respective heroes. The kind of jazz Sal and Dean seek is free-form and fast-paced, much like the nature of the novel and the essence of the road Sal is hitchhiking across. In a contextualization of the novel it can be seen that the road is a path to self-discovery. When Sal arrives at the Les Moines hotel at the beginning of the book, he is alone and says, "That was the one special moment in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - away from home, haunted and tired from a trip, in a cheap hotel room I had never seen” (Page 15). Sal being alone and saying “I didn't know who I was” shows the reader that this is a story about growing up The Road symbolizes Sal's journey as an individual and at the end of the road he discovers who he truly is as a person. The constant and frenetic change of destination mirrors the jazz music that Sal finds himself constantly returning to throughout the novel each experience gains insight into who he is, Sal finds himself in situations where he is left alone, and the book emphasizes these moments. even Slim leaves him alone to sleep on a bench. The time Sal has to himself is time for deep personal recognition. In the book, Dean is busy finding "IT", Kerouac never explicitly tells the reader what "IT" is, but one can assume it has something to do with self-awareness. discovery. “IT” is ever-evolving, different for each person, and goes hand-in-hand with the path Sal is on. Turning to Sal, Dean tells him: 'Now, man, that alto last night had "IT" - he kept it once he found it; I never seen a guy who could hold on that long.' I wanted to know what “IT” meant. “Ah good” – Dean laughed” (Page 207). Dean lets Sal know that “IT” is this fast-paced, spontaneous thing that varies from person to person From person to person, “IT” may be different for a person throughout their life, but “IT” is ever-changing. Once someone has found “IT”, it doesn't mean they will have the “IT” for the rest of his life. Dean also tells Sal that society as a whole has very little individuality. Society is constantly looking for something to worry about and has not found its “IT.” : "They have worries, they count the miles, they think about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they will get there - and all the time they will get" there anyway, you see with false urges and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls will not truly be at peace unless they can hold on to an established and proven worry and once found, put on the appropriate facial expressions. and follow her” (Page 209). Dean re-establishes why it's so important for both of them to continue traveling on this path. Without their “IT” they are equal to the conforming society around them. “IT” is an ever-evolving concept of self-discovery, it exists.