Dionysian Spirit And Carnival Features In On The Road

On the Road is the monumental novel of Jack Kerouac, king of the Beats. The publishing of this novel in1957gave a violent blow to the rigid social ethos, and brought a stream of fresh breeze to American literature. Kerouac composed a truly Odyssey legend of the Beat Generation, which is the loyal record of the Beats’ life style and emotions from the end of1940s to the beginning of1950s. The novel has been regarded as the classic of the Beat Generation ever since its publication, and is nominated by Time Magazine as one of the100top English-language novels of the twentieth century.The present thesis attempts to interpret On the Road from the perspective of carnival theory of Nietzsche and Bakhtin and argues that the protagonists are on a quest to affirm the will to life, and the specific object of their quest is spiritual. The essence of carnival is to subvert and update the existing social ranks and ideology in order to change the reality by obtaining complete freedom and equality among people. Carnival is a kind of marginalized life style and carnival spirit resists all rules and constraints, therefore it never bows to any values and authorities. This carnival spirit of anti-authority, anti-tradition and anti-mainstream profoundly echoes the theme and content of the novel.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to the Beat Generation and Beat literature, Jack Kerouac’s life and works, as well as the summary and literary comments of On the Road.Chapter two introduces Nietzsche’s Dionysian spirit and Bakhtin’s carnival theory. The former embodies the affirmation and justification of life will, while the later tries to subvert the official ideology and gain individual freedom. With the essence of subversion of authority, both Nietzsche and Bakhtin emphasize life factors, namely, material and body. In the condition of carnival, the grading system is destroyed and there are no discriminations among people, so a utopian prospect is constructed by means of intoxication and revelries in which there are no hierarchies and inequalities, and the world as a whole is in great harmony. Chapter three points out Dean is the incarnation of Dionysus, and interprets this anti-heron from four aspects, namely, madness, purity, ambivalence and unbalance. Dean, with the Dionysian frenzy, leads a life that deviates from the accepted mainstream ethics. This fallen angel’s irrational and amoral elements really constitute a strong impact on ordinary people’s sense and sensibility. He undoubtedly becomes the embodiment of the free-spirited Dionysus, who represents the outbreak of life force and exists as a new value to get rid of social bondages.Chapter four further analyzes the protagonists’ intoxicated life experiences, their subversion of the American authority and their spiritual pursuit behind intoxication. These crazy travelers take drugs, drink excessively, advocate sexual liberation, laugh at everything and drive at high speeds along the road. Breaking away from the mainstream society’s moral standards, they subvert the authority by destroying modern civilizations but despite of the surface entertainments and dissipations, their spiritual connotation is to defend and purify human souls.Chapter five explores how spontaneous writing is reflected in the novel. Spontaneous witting is to let the overflowing mind form words without hindering, without rational reflections and without logical thinking. The carnivalistic language in On the Road, which obeys the logic of reversion and subversion, is the best embodiment of Dionysian spirit in the aspect of writing in which the fleeting experiences and feelings are successfully captured, so the writer’s emotions could be greatly released. On the Road is a successful practice of carnivalistic creation.Chapter six concludes that overflowing with passion, freedom and truth, Dionysian spirit is spread all over the novel from its content to its writing style. On the Road at the core is a carnivalistic novel about life-affirming spiritual pursuit.