Big Sur
(Jack Kerouac)

Isolation

Throughout the novel, Jack goes back forth between the intense need to be alone, and the equally intense need to be around others. When he is living in New York he feels like he needs to get away from the fame that drives him crazy; in Big Sur Jack is only happy for a few weeks until he feels that he desperately needs companionship because he is beginning to lose his mind. One day during a fight with Billie she remarked to him that for someone who wants to be a hermit he sure goes out of his way to avoid it. The isolation that Jack craved actually became something which only drove him further out of his mind.

Madness

The madness that Jack experiences is something that he began falling into when he was still living in the east coast, though in his mind he only needed a vacation from the young beatniks who looked up to him. Jack believed that living in the public eye was driving him mad, and then he believed isolation was the culprit, and then he became paranoid that his friends were out to get him which meant they were the ones driving him mad. Ultimately, it seems that the weeks-long alcohol binge Jack had been on was certainly what was causing his brain and emotions to run overtime.

Alcohol

Alcohol is the catalyst for nearly everything in Jack’s life, both good and bad. Alcohol fueled Jack’s younger years when he felt so happy and alive, but alcohol also fueled the intense depression and paranoia that Jack experienced in his later adult years. As Jack got old, the alcoholism began to make him go through bouts of delirium, which is what Jack is experiencing throughout this novel. There are several instances where Kerouac’s writing becomes a bit nonsensical and that is an accurate depiction of his thoughts when delirious.

Mortality

Mortality is something that haunts Jack and which he philosophizes about throughout the novel. While Jack is at Big Sur, he begins to see signs of his impending madness in the form of dead animals. It troubles Jack to see the fragility and fleetingness of life, and he feels that somehow he is the one responsible for everything around him dying. Jack believes in various instances throughout the novel that he is dying, or that he will die if he allows himself to remain in one place. There is even a point when he thinks that everything is dead, and he is the only thing living in his madness.

Art

Art is something which was central to the Beat Generation. Jack and his friends are mostly all writers, artists, or poets, and when they get together they philosophize about things that most other people do not even think about. In a way, they are the original “hipsters”. Without his art, Jack feels that he contributes nothing to the world so he must write to alleviate his guilt for living. At one point, Jack vows to stop writing all together because he feels the reason he is going mad is because he has spoken so freely of the suffering of others in his past works.

Nature

Nature, for Jack, represents solitude which is something he desperately craves at the beginning of the novel. When Jack arrives at Big Sur, he frightened of the freedom of nature and all of the seemingly ominous things that he sees around him. He quickly adapts to it and even enjoys his time in the wilderness and with the animals. He becomes so tuned in to the animals around him that he feeds and cares for them, and even blames himself when they die. Jack believes that it is both nature and the city which are driving him equally mad, though truly his alcoholism is to blame.

Spirituality

Jack makes several references throughout the novel to his spiritual beliefs. Though Jack was raised Catholic, which he points out at both the hot springs and when he sees The Cross, he also mentions that he has been studying Buddhism for some time. Jack considers himself to be a truly spiritual person who has no issues with marrying his two religions into one, but when he is in his spiral of delirium he often wonders whether God hates the world he has created.

Transformation

While Jack does indeed go through a transformation throughout the novel, several of them actually, those are not the main transformations that he experiences. The largest change that Jack makes and that he sees within himself is the transformation from the young beatnik who penned On the Road to the middle-aged alcoholic who slips in and out of delirium that he has become. He knows that he has changed, and it bothers him that young people look up to him and want to learn from him when he has come to view himself as being wholly unremarkable.

Sex

Sex is something that occurs often and freely within the beatnik community. Cody moves from one mistress to the other throughout his adult life, and his wife knows it; he is also willing to share his wife with any men who are interested in her though she is not always so willing. Romana and Dave have sex right out in the open and do not care who is watching them, and Billie encourages her young son Elliot to watch her, and Jack have sex because she feels it is the only way he will learn. Even when Jack is spiraling out of control, he and Billie continue to have sex most of the time because it feels normal.

Fear

Jack experiences an inexplicable fear during much of his time at Big Sur. When he first arrives he is immersed in darkness and though he can hear the water below him he cannot see it. In the daylight what Jack sees horrifies him; the water had been 100 feet below him; there is a car in the water which must have fallen off the bridge; he feels as though the wildlife is urging him to leave them alone, and the sea seems to speak to him. As Jack slips further into madness, he becomes increasingly fearful of the things that surround him and the prospect that all of life is about death.