Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s on the Road

In Jack Kerouacs novel, On The Road, main protagonist Dean Moriarty symbolizes an nearly immortal flame of young person that embodies the rebellious generation of uncertainty that describes 1950s Beat culture. Desirable of everything at the same time, from his numerable fixations with drugs, his incalculable ro piece of musictic entanglements with women, or his superficial preoccupation to be conn as an intellectual, we get to know Deans liberating and pioneering personality as the Holy Goof as well as an apparent record of Beat culture.Though it is not until a series of passages at the commencement of the novel that the crucifixion of Dean Moriartys youth takes place, forcing upon him a revelation forcing him to relinquish his naive, rebellious ship canal into a living of real uncertainties and real problems. In one of these passages, at what first seems to be a light hearted conversation between Dean and Sal in a restaurant bathroom, soon evidently becomes a foreshadowing of D eans diminishing youth We were both exhausted and dirtyI was at a urinal closure Deans way and said to Dean, Dig this trick. Yes, man, he said, washing his hands at the sink, its a very good trick but horrendous on your kidneys because youre getting a little older now every time you do this eventually years of misery in your old age, awful kidney miseries for the days when you sits in the parks. It feistye me mad. Whos old? Im not much older than you are I wasnt saying that, man Ah, I said, youre al shipway making cracks about my age. Im no old fag, you take upt have to warn me about my kidneysI said to cap my anger, And I dont want to hear any more of it. And suddenly Deans eye grew tearful and he got up and leftDean stood after-school(prenominal) the restaurant for exactly five minutes Well, I said, what were you doing out there? Go ahead tell me I was crying, said Dean. Ah hell, you never cry. You say that? why do you think I dont cry? You dont die enough to cry. Every one of these things I said was a knife at myself. Everything I had ever secretly held against my brother was coming out (Kerouac 215)Here, for the first time and only time in the novel, do we see the hero, Dean, reach his threshold, and break down to cry. It is a symbolic point in the novel in that we are witnessing Dean beginning to change we see his fade slight flame begin to wither away. When Sal says, You dont die enough to cry he is basically telling Dean he does not experience true animation. A life that is filled with lows and highs, easts and wests, positives and negatives a life that isnt always Ah Whee (Kerouac 119) moments in which until this point Deans life as we know it had evolved around.Opposed to the Dean we know in the beginning of the novel, mad to live, mad to talk and would never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn(Kerouac 291), we now see a increment sense of distress and misfortune through this passage. We can even detect a sense of maturi ty through Deans actions. He has hit rock bottom, his physical structure gives up and he allows himself to cry. While Sal, previously inspired by Deans unknowing nature, is for the first time realizing all of his time spent trenchant for life has in actuality been time spent running toward death with Dean as to escape his own life.All this time, Sal has been desiring to be with Dean, craving his eternal madness, and it isnt until now that he realizes by following Dean, hes been ignoring reality and altering the way in which he experiences the world. Deans crying scene is the death of his youth and the birth of this novels martyr. This passage embodies the not-so-immortal flame of youth that defined both Sal and Deans generation. It is here, through Deans martyrdom that we see Dean begin to accept life as a risen hero of the road, his old philosophies and ways of life serving no longer an inspiration for those lost, or soon to be lost.Upon finishing this novel, I concluded that thi s passages reference to Deans immortality is also manifested in the books terminus in that there is no true closure to this novel. There is no closure to the ideas, beliefs, or the eternal flame that Dean represents. An open ending to his life and what happens to Dean Moriarty allows him to remain immortal. Even through Sals dialogue at the very end, we are left with the sense that Sal will eternally be thinking of him as he walks away across the land. The book itself, much like Deans character, has embodied the uncertainty of what ies ahead, and has manifested Deans personality into the story itself. Sals description at the end of the novel of a star in the distance becoming less bright as its sheds across the night sky represents the eternal legacy of Dean Moriarty becoming less bright and the diminishment of his naive and rebellious youth. This image of the shedding star, along with the novels absence of a resolution, resonates with his entire philosophy and way of life, a life of spontaneity, a life of never knowing your future and loving it.