dharma bums essay topics

The Dharma Bums follows the pattern of many of Kerouac’s other novels in concentrating mainly on two characters: a first-person male narrator based on Kerouac himself, and a larger-than-life male hero who inspires the narrator’s admiration and allegiance. This pattern has a long tradition in American literature, including such important works as Moby Dick (1851) and The Great Gatsby (1925), but Kerouac’s use of the pattern raises interesting new issues because all of his heroes were based on close friends, usually writers themselves, who sometimes had strong reactions to Kerouac’s fictional use of them. Gary Snyder, for example, was initially angered by the image of an irrepressible extrovert and womanizer that The Dharma Bums imposed on him. Years later, however, Snyder praised Kerouac for his talent as a mythographer—for synthesizing the values that he wanted to promote in his archetypal characters. Kerouac’s characterization of Ray and Japhy has much to do with his personal and professional situation at the time that he wrote the novel. In the year between the experiences chronicled in The Dharma Bums and the time of its writing, Kerouac’s most famous novel, On the Road (1957), was published, and he was unsettled by the glare of publicity and deeply troubled by the outraged vituperation of critics, who denounced the activities of Kerouac’s hero Dean Moriarty (based on Neal Cassady) as depraved and subversive. Thus in November, 1957, through the haze of an increasing drinking problem, Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums in an attempt both to hold on to the positive aspects of his life from just a year earlier, and to embody those aspects in a hero whose associations with the American frontier tradition would allow Kerouac’s critics to see his visionary intentions in a more positive light. Like all of Kerouac’s first-person narrators, Ray Smith is a man of immense inner.
HomeStudy GuidesDharma BumsEssay Questions Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac How does Kerouac's writing style reflect or compliment his protagonist's attitude? What are its limitations? How does Kerouac portray his own protagonist? Is he sympathetic, critical, or objective? Use concrete stylistic evidence to support your claim. On an explicit level, Ray seems to be a full-fledged follower and admirer of Japhy. Is Japhy and Ray's relationship as straightforward as it seems? What can be said about Ray's occasional tinges of jealousy or sarcasm towards Japhy? According to Ray, one of the most important virtues is charity, and one of the gravest vices is righteousness. Does he live by his own standards? Has he achieved the capacity to be truly merciful without self-aggrandizement? Discuss the portrayal of women in The Dharma Bums. Based on Kerouac's impersonal viewpoint, does he share his characters' opinions about females? Zen Buddhist teachings are often structured around koans, or paradoxical riddles. What paradoxes or tensions can be found in Ray's life? Does it seem possible that they might be resolved? When Ray sees Japhy bounding down from Matterhorn, he suddenly stumbles upon the euphoric revelation that you can't fall off a mountain. Discuss this quote in terms of Ray's personal attitude toward life. In Chapter 25, Japhy teaches Ray about a series of Buddhist teachings and riddles that seem to have absurd conclusions. What are the implications of these bizarre and surprising stories? Can any similar conclusions be extracted from the main plot of Kerouac's book? Who or what shares the blame for Rosie Buchanan's suicide? Could her untimely death have been prevented? Analyze Kerouac's style in the last few chapters of the novel when he writes about Ray's stint on Matterhorn peak. Do any prevailing moods shine through the writing? What does Kerouac's tone reveal about.
Like most of Jack Kerouac’s novels, The Dharma Bums is an autobiographical fiction in which a particular period in its author’s life is dramatically heightened and given coherent shape. The book focuses on the friendship between its first-person narrator, Raymond Smith (based on Kerouac himself), and Japhy Ryder (based on Gary Snyder), and on the ways in which Japhy inspires Ray to lead a more spiritual, self-sufficient life. The novel begins, however, not with the first meeting between Ray and Japhy, but with a freight train ride from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, during which Ray is delighted to meet a little bum who carries a prayer by Saint Teresa. This tramp, whom Ray takes to be a religious wanderer, is less important in himself than as a precursor of Japhy Ryder, who comes to represent the ultimate “Dharma bum” in Ray’s rapturous eyes. From their first meeting, Japhy is seen as an exemplary pilgrim who travels the world “to turn the wheel of the True Meaning, or Dharma, and gain merit for himself as a future Buddha (Awakener).” Though Kerouac does not group his thirty-four chapters into sections, the novel does, under close scrutiny, reveal a symmetrical tripartite form. In each of its three parts, Ray moves from stressful encounters in civilization toward epiphanies in nature—epiphanies which he either experiences with or associates with Japhy. In the first section, Ray enjoys certain aspects of his new friendship with Japhy in San Francisco and Berkeley, but it is their trip to the High Sierra that takes him to his first major “peak” experience of the novel. Kerouac dramatizes the historic group reading at the Gallery Six which launched the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance in October, 1955, but he relegates Allen Ginsberg’s breakthrough chanting of “Howl” (here Alvah Goldbook’s recitation of “Wail”) to the background, preferring instead to concentrate on.
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In 1957, the year that his signature book, On the Road, was first printed, Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac began work on what was to become his third published work, The Dharma Bums. It was written with legendary haste in only ten writing sessions of 15,000 to 20,000 words each, and would be published the following year. Kerouac's novel is told in a loose (though linear) manner in the voice of adventuresome protagonist Ray Smith, detailing his trials and triumphs as he climbs mountains, parties with his friends, and meets all sorts of interesting people while hitchhiking across America. Like On the Road, Dharma Bums is highly autobiographical. Ray Smith is an alias for Kerouac himself; Ray's friends are caricatures of his real-life acquaintances, and his cross-country jaunts, described in explicit detail, occur in certifiably locatable towns and cities spread across the United States. Reflections of Kerouac's own troubles, including his alcoholism and conflicting sexual ideas, also echo within the novel. In some sense it is unsurprising that certain notable events ( Alvah Goldbook's recitation of Wail in Gallery Six ) are directly parallel to true situations (Allan Ginsberg's recitation of Howl in Six Gallery). But even some of Kerouac's more unbelievable encounters - such as his meeting with a bum whose teaches him the curative power of standing on his head - also prove verifiable. The novel's oft-astonishing plot and humanitarian themes acquire a particularly forceful credence because they are rooted in reality. Unfortunately, Kerouac's novel received a relatively poor reception in the literary field. His thinly veiled biography managed to offend companion Allan Ginsberg who, disappointed with his inconsistent portrayal in The Dharma Bums, offended Kerouac in a literary review. Time magazine wrote derisive commentary about it under the heading The Yabyum Kid.
Study Pack The The Dharma Bums Study Pack contains: The Dharma Bums Study Guide Jack Kerouac Biographies (5) Jack Kerouac 5,775 words, approx. 20 pages Jack Kerouac died, as he had spent much of his adult life, writing. The morning of October 20, 1969, he was sitting in front of his television at his home in St. Petersburg, Florida, jotting down note. Read more Jack Kerouac 3,449 words, approx. 12 pages Jack Kerouac, regarded in modern American fiction as the authentic voice of the beat generation, thought of himself as a storyteller in the innovative literary tradition of Proust and Joyce, creatin. Read more Jack Kerouac 17,377 words, approx. 58 pages Jack Kerouac, once called our most misunderstood and underestimated writer, is gradually emerging from that limbo, though much about him remains obscure. The obscurity results from a misreading of h. Read more Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac 1,069 words, approx. 4 pages Jean-Louis Lebris de (Jack) Kerouac (1922-1969), American writer, experimented with spontaneous autobiographical fiction chronicling his travels into the American West. He is known as the father of th. Read more Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac 3,796 words, approx. 13 pages Biography EssayJack Kerouac, regarded in modern American fiction as the authentic voice of the beat genera- don, thought of himself as a storyteller in the innovative literary tradition of Proust an. Read more.