Kerouac, Jack

1922–1969

U.S. Novelist and Poet

Jack Kerouac's life and writing have greatly influenced conceptions of masculinity, gender roles, and sexuality in contemporary American society. Kerouac and other writers of the Beat Generation—which reached its height during the 1950s— rejected what they considered stifling and hypocritical middle-class conventions in favor of intense personal experience, freedom of expression, artistic creation, and spiritual enlightenment. They immersed themselves in alcohol, drugs, jazz culture, and sex. Kerouac's vision of manhood thus diverged radically from the postwar norm of dutiful, impassive figures aspiring to material wealth, security, and nuclear-family life. Rather, like his literary forefather Walt Whitman, Kerouac celebrated an ideal man that lived in the present moment, was emotionally forthright, and sought passionate self-understanding and sensual exhilaration.

The shy, devout son of Catholic French-Canadian immigrants in working-class Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac felt like an outsider his entire life. As a youth, the deaths of both his brother and his best friend, and his disillusionment with organized sports and the military, left him seeking intimate male companionship, the recovery of lost innocence, and compassion for all living creatures—themes present in all of his writing. While his sexual partners included men and women, he found intimacy difficult and sexuality became both an obsession and a source of great discomfort for him.

Kerouac chronicled his life in a series of novels he called the “Legend of Duluoz.” Its centerpiece is On the Road (1957), which follows the adventures of Sal Paradise (modeled on Kerouac himself) and Dean Moriarty (Kerouac's friend Neal Cassady) as they cultivate an intense relationship while traveling across the country in search of “kicks,” the American dream, and masculine identity. Dean is an animalistic vessel of raw energy and sexuality, and Sal is his observant, reflective, sensitive sidekick. Sal and Dean attempt to express their deep love for each other, including their vulnerability. This presented a stark contrast to contemporary male figures, for whom visible affection toward a male “buddy” smacked of homosexuality. Women appear in the book largely as sex objects, often left behind when Sal and Dean's adventures resume. Although Sal laments such disrespect for women and sometimes longs for conventional domesticity, the novel lacks a consistent feminist perspective and reflects a long American literary tradition of associating masculinity with travel and freedom from domestic ties.

Upon its publication, On the Road was a best-seller, and Kerouac was immediately hailed as the exemplary white, bohemian hipster and the voice of a generation of rebellious youth. He saw himself, however, as a solitary contemplative artist on a spiritual quest for a disappearing American ideal of small-town innocence and simplicity, and later novels show a broadening of his spiritual vision of masculinity. In The Dharma Bums (1958), Japhy Ryder introduces Ray Smith (Kerouac) to the wonders of Buddhist meditation and communion with nature, moving him away from the distractions of modern life. Visions of Cody (1972) continues Kerouac's spiritual portrait of Neal Cassady, exploring themes including suffering, alienation, detachment, and ultimate redemption.

Kerouac helped pave the way for the counterculture and Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. His influence on contemporary notions of masculinity can be seen throughout society, from casual clothing styles and “hip” language to immersion in music and public displays of emotion and affection. Since the 1960s, American men have negotiated masculinity amid an expanding range of options, and Jack Kerouac contributed greatly to this breadth of alternatives.

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