The Search is what Kerouac Does Best

Going off of the idea of Kerouac that I constructed through On The Road, I expected a lot more from his Dr. Sax. The integration of stream of consciousness and non-linear time paths is interesting but not really my taste. Plus placing so much emphasis on the mystery behind death really is just not appealing to me.

                The matter of Dr. Sax being representative of a sax or art itself was brought up in class. For Kerouac, this comparison fits. The class discussed how Dr. Sax could be hero or is maybe actually sinister and how no one is ever really sure about his true nature. Just as art imitated life, Kerouac cast Dr. Sax in a role that allowed him to imitate life as well. Dr. Sax’s mismatched behavior seems to reflect how no one would ever really be sure about the nature of death, which seems to be what Kerouac is trying to get at. And this dual nature is also seen in Jackie himself with the question of his intent. Kerouac poses these characters with indiscriminate natures to highlight and parallel the true nature of death and of life itself. For death to permeate Book Four  seems almost natural since death is such a large question for Kerouac, of course it would be for his characters as well.

                The ambiguity of whether Dr. Sax is good or not is intentional I feel in order to show how not everything in life is as clear cut as people want it to be. The Snake is what represents evil in the novel. But if good fights against evil, does that mean that Dr. Sax is good? Jackie also has this similarity with the Dr. Jackie is caught between being a good friend and a thief. In this way I can see a similarity between the two individuals.

                Dr. Lennon’s first slide on Wednesday made a comment that the novel ultimately is about growing up. The notion of growing up fits perfectly with this book because it seems to be Kerouac’s way to work through the mysteries of life. All of the major life issues that children must face and try to figure out are what the book is focusing on, a major one being death. Kerouac writes about the comfort he gains from art and spending time with his mother while they were ill to try to overcome death and the fear that it instilled in him. But ultimately it failed. Dr. Sax is Kerouac’s chronicle of his passage into adulthood more or less. He, along with Jackie, tries to figure out and face the ultimate truth: everyone dies. Even in his book On The Road, Kerouac’s uneasiness about life was apparent. He goes in search of something to finally define his life but never really attains it. Kerouac spends his life trying to obtain “it.” And so his characters main focus is to find “it” as well. Dr. Sax is an engaging book, but it is too much confusing circular thinking for me.