He was discharged from the Navy for psychiatric reasons. During these couple of years, Kerouac sailed to Greenland as well as to Liverpool as a merchant seamen. Jack joined the Merchant Marines, and a year later, after the Second World War began, he enlisted in the U.S. To beat it all, Leo lost his business and fell into alcoholism. The football plans did not work: Jack broke his leg and was unhappy with his coach's insistence that he should not not play. In 1941, he spent his first and only year at Columbia. Īt age 17, Jack published articles in the “Horace Mann Record”, which was the school newspaper. He received a football scholarship to Columbia University, but they insisted that he should first go to Horace Mann, a prep school in New York, for a year, what he actually did then. Jack felt that going to college might help restore the Kerouac name and good reputation.

Jack's father turned to gambling in order to help the family's financial situation. Life in Lowell had become a financial struggle for Jack's parents: Leo's once successful printshop began to suffer as well. In the early 40s, he wrote for Lowell's Sun as a sportswriter. As a young teenager, Kerouac wrote his own sportsheet, which he sold to friends. Jack's father published a Lowell newsletter called “The Spotlight”, and Jack helped him with the layout and press work for the publication. His earliest inspirations were Thomas Wolfe and a radio show called ”The Shadow”. By the time Kerouac was ten, he knew he wanted to be a writer. He did not speak English until the age of six because of his French descent. Jack Kerouac, named Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts on Mato a French-Canadian couple, Leo and Gabrielle. The Biographies of Two Travellers 1.1 Jack Kerouac In addition, I also show that the journeys changed with the progress of the plot. I demonstrate that at different stages the main characters had different motifs for travelling.

This is of importance to show that Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” not only stands within the tradition of the Beat movement but also defined it.Īnother focus is on the development of the novel’s main characters which consequently leads to the question of the meaning of journey in the novel. Furthermore, I illustrate the Beat movement – how it came into existence and why – and the attitudes within the Beat Generation. In order to do so, I focus on the biographies of both Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, whose personas build the main characters Sal and Dean. In my seminar paper I draw a comparison between the real life of Kerouac and his Beat colleagues and the events depicted in his novel “On the Road”. Practically all of Kerouac's books are said to be autobiographical. Other Travellers – ‘The Beats’ & their Generation

Neal cassady on the road