Christopher's Blog

It feels very good to say that I have completed my ISU essay. It was a big task but I’m happy with how it turned out. I didn’t feel as if I had to force myself to write it, like some essays in the past. I’m also satisfied with myself because I submitted it the day it was due… for a few days leading up to the due date I was wondering if I would finish on time.

Anyway I suppose this will be one of my final posts about On The Road, which is slightly upsetting. The book certainly had it’s ups and downs and rough spots, but overall I’m really happy I changed my book when I did, and I think the whole process of the ISU was enjoyable (which is not always the case).

I have been working very hard on my essay for On the Road, but rather than make it rushed like Kerouac did with his novel I’m going to hand it in tomorrow night via webpage along with the annotated bibliography. Otherwise it’s just going to look unorganized and un-edited like his original scroll.

At this point I’m feeling the stress of the work load (from this and other courses). However once June rolls around I know it will be smooth sailing because all I will have to worry about is the novels essay and the exam.

I’m currently working on my I.S.U. essay which is progressing well, I just need to take the time to sit down and write.

I’m not worried about what I have to do, but I’m not necessarily looking forward to this weekend. Since I have a thorough outline it shouldn’t be too hard to write the essay, it’s just a matter of actually writing it.

I have been working on my essay…
I am currently trying to prove that Sal’s trip was a waste of time. Basically because he traveled for almost four years straight and didn’t manage to find what he was looking for.

Jack Kerouac’s Novel “On The Road” features a man in his twenties named Sal Paradise who goes on the road in search of inspiration for writing. However, rather than finding inspiration he instead finds himself feeling lonely and hopeless. Because Sal was unable to find what he was looking for his four year period on the road was a complete waste of time.

Although Sal claims to go on the road to find inspiration, clearly he was looking for something else. Otherwise he would not have continued to travel to the exact same places. For example Sal continued to travel through certain cities he had already been to, even though he hadn’t found inspiration there the first time around.

Today Renee and I were filming the pie scene from Act V of Titus Andronicus. We borrowed Scott for the role of Saturnius, Renee played Tamora and I played Titus. Overall I think it went really well. We purposely made it funny because it is such a heavy topic and we didn’t want it to be too upsetting for people to watch. We will show our movie and contrast it with the real Titus movie clip which should be very entertaining for everyone. Hopefully this will help everyone have a solid understanding of the play. Other than that everything is going according to plan. We are the second last group to present so if anything we are ahead of schedule.

Poetry – Alyssa and I each have our poems that we will analyze. I am working on a slideshow involving Plath’s biography, works and other interesting things.

Play – Renee, Shelby and I have done all of our work for each act and I am putting together the slideshow that will be used next week. We do however need to film our scenes for our mini movie summary of the play. This is not a must but it would make our presentation more exciting. I also need to complete my essay for tomorrow.

Novels – I have collected all three books I need. Now I must read them and make an essay.

ISU – I have finished reading the book and have a good idea of what I want to do for my essay. I still have a good amount of time before it is due, however I don’t want to wait until the last minute.

Blog – I have been successfully keeping up with my blog on a weekly basis so far.

Lots of work to be done still… but I do have a good grip on all of the assignments which is good.

Tomorrow Renee, Shelby and I are suppose to be filming a summary of the play. The point of this is… first of all we can’t exactly stand there and talk about the whole play without people getting bored. Also we can’t read them the whole play and we can’t show them the whole movie. That is why we are going to make a summary video of the most important scenes. We will approach this in an entertaining fashion so that people are intrigued. Although Titus Andronicus is exciting enough in it’s brutality and violence that we don’t exactly have to add anything to it (instead we will be taking out a lot of the graphic nature of the play). I am not entirely sure which scenes we will be filming but I know for sure that we will have the exciting climax involving Titus feeding the human pies to his guests… killing Tomora in front of the guests… and so on (too much killing to even list). One of the main problems might be the fact that we only have three people in the group and there are so many different characters in the play. However, we are smart folk and we will figure something out.

Okay, I’m finally done the book. I would have finished it a bit earlier but I honestly had a rough time sitting down in order to finish the last few chapters. By the time Sal had said goodbye to Dean back in New York before the Mexico trip, I had thought that was the last time that Dean would be mentioned. Instead they ended up meeting again, going to Mexico and doing a lot of the exact same things that they had done in America. It may have been exciting for them, but for me (the reader) I just found it really tedious and boring. It wasn’t really necessary to continue talking about all of their excessive drinking, smoking and so on.. I just felt like I was re-reading previous chapters.

Having said that I did like the ending because it was in fact very similar to the Catcher in the Rye. Sal goes back to New York, Holden goes home too. They have very different circumstances, but at the end they are both just retelling stories of the people they encountered, whom they miss.

This might seem kind of crazy, but I believe that I can argue that Sal was in love with Dean on a romantic level. Although he doesn’t flat out say it, there are little hints throughout the book that show that Dean was the most important person in Sal’s life and I believe that part of this is because that Sal was in fact in love with Dean. I am trying to think of whether or not this thesis would be harder to continue with than the thesis regarding whether or not the three year trip was just a waste of time.

I know I am going to have to re-read a few chapters in order to dig deeper into these ideas.

Overall I was satisfied with the book and thought it was very interesting. Like I said before, I just felt that it got a little redundant towards the end which was unfortunate. However Jack Kerouac told the story as it happened, and I can respect those chapters from that frame of mind.

“Nothing in this lousy world is my fault, don’t you see that? I don’t want it to be and it can’t be and it won’t be.” – Jack Kerouac (214)

I found this quote interesting because Jack is sitting at the restaurant with Dean and begins to spill out his emotions. He says that nothing is his fault, but he behaves in a way that would contradict that statement. He is constantly running away from things in the past that did not go right. Whether or not it was his fault that certain relationships went bad, it was his fault that he did not make an attempt to make it better. Instead he contiunes to travel cross-country avoiding all of his problems and using other people’s money and resources for his benefit. Not that Jack is a bad person, or tries to cause people harm, the problem is that he doesn’t know how to go about solving problems in a proper manor. That’s why he doesn’t have any long lasting relationships, and only a couple of real friends. The majority of his acquaintances are people that he bums money, gas and shelter from….

Jack sent a letter to Old Bull Lee stating that he had a woman friend who gave him whisky, money and big suppers. She ended up hearing about the letter and got mad at him for using her, and told him that she never wanted to see him again. Jack’s response to this was yelling a lot and getting drunk.

(This could lead into my essay some how). As I’ve been reading the book, I’ve been questioning the entire purpose of his journey. Obviously he’s being inspired by all of the jazz, drugs, poetry and girls, but why does he keep going back on the road after he comes home multiple times. He keeps expecting that he’s going to find something brilliant in the next city. Denver, New York, San Fransisco, Sacramento, and eventually goes home, and then goes back to the same places again.

One final thought: Jack’s biggest similarity to Holden Caulfield is that although he seems to dislike everybody at times (including Dean) he always ends up missing them even if they ended off on bad terms.

Although I have not finished the book yet, therefore making it hard for me to come up with a thesis statement, I am certainly enjoying the book. I definately made the right move switching books and am looking forward to reading the rest of “On the Road”. I should be done in the next few days, which would be perfect timing in terms of deadlines.

I really like the fact that the book has many similarities to “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger. Both books are in the first person and focus mainly on the one character whom is on a journey. Both books are by american authors and written around the same time. Jack is a much less pessimistic person than Holden was, (I know Holden wasn’t actually a real person..) but I find both characters just as interesting because of their distinct personalities.

More thoughts will come as soon as I’m finished reading..