Conflicts of Constancy and Wandering

            To me, Kerouac's On the Road seems to be filled with contradictions and competing desires, leaving me unsure of exactly what Jack is searching for on his travels. Throughout the first section of the novel, Kerouac feels an overwhelming need to always move from place to place, but once he reaches his destination he doesn't really feel a sense of lasting satisfaction. Although Kerouac seems to envision himself as a philosophical nomad, he always returns to the idea of leading a conventional domestic life. This type of thought seems to appear whenever Kerouac finds a new romantic interest and considers the idea of settling down with a woman. Although he expresses that his relationship with his ex-wife is rocky, Kerouac is determined to visit her and regain something of the lifestyle he once experienced. When living with Beatrice, Kerouac desires a sense of permanence and the ability to provide a secure financial standing for his "family" in the midst of  an uncharted journey across the country. This same draw to stability also relates to Kerouac's relationship with his mother, whom he sends money to during his travels, even when he barely seems able to care for himself.

            When he returns home in the first section of the novel, Kerouac and his mother decide to use his earning to replace their icebox with a refrigerator, which would be "the first one in the family" (211). Although this is just a subtle detail in the text, Kerouac returns to this same idea when he visits home in the second section of the novel, saying he "got home and ate everything in the icebox again, only now it was a refrigerator, fruit of my 1947 labors, and that in some measure was the progress of my life" (279). These two scenes are incredibly similar and serve as a framework for Kerouac's personal discoveries during his second wave of travelling with Neal, as he seems to have matured and reassessed his values. Although Kerouac obtains some kind of immediate gratification and enrichment by living in the moment, he doesn't seem to believe that his life can be solely enriched in this manner. During their road trip to San Francisco, Kerouac tells Neal, "'This can't go on all the time...all this franticness and jumping around. We've got to go someplace, find something,'" which seems to refer to this notion of domestic constancy (218).

            I'm not sure if Kerouac is simply expressing a desire to stay in one place, or if he is beginning to feel that accomplishment can be physically measured through belongings and visible ties. There's also the emerging question of Kerouac defining some sort of personal fulfillment through his relationships with other people. When travelling, Kerouac seems to have no qualms about meeting new people and never seeing them again, even if he feels a sense of deep attachment. However, his relationships with Neal and Louanne become more strained the longer he stays with them, and Kerouac even admits to a loss of faith in Neal. I'm not sure if Kerouac never loses a sense of loyalty to his mother because of the sense of constancy he receives from her emotional support, or because she symbolizes the home containing a refrigerator that was earned through commitment and will stay as an investment for the future. Although Kerouac was obsessed with his need to visit San Francisco for over half of the novel, he finally states, "What I accomplished by coming to Frisco I don't know" (277). This admission leaves me wondering if Kerouac ever had an end goal in mind, or if he was simply living in the moment because he never expected to have anything in the future. Kerouac's travels take on a mythic status in his own mind, but his confusion over constructing an idealistic pursuit makes me unsure if Kerouac can ever be phased by a collapsing ideal or be impacted by the gaps that movement can't fill.