Dean Moriarty – The Tragic Hero From On The Road By Jack Kerouac
In On the Road, written by Jack Kerouac, the main character, Sal Paradise, is on a quest to assess the reality of the unlimited freedom of the American Dream. A living example of this American Dream and unlimited freedom is the tragic hero of our story, Dean Moriarty. Dean is Sal’s inspiration and reason for wanting a life of limitless freedom. With this free spirit, Dean often loses sight of moral decisions as they travel around the country. Along the way, Sal realizes that his ideal life is not all that great because of his interactions with Dean, and he sees how much Dean suffers due to his freedom.
Dean Moriarty is a tragic hero because his suffering represents the hardships of living on the road while attempting to create his own American Dream. Dean is a man constantly in and out of, both, jail and relationships. These experiences form him into a man obsessed with alcohol, drugs, and sex. For Dean, “sex is the one and only holy and important thing in life”, and this shows as he has three wives and four children over the course of the three-year story. He only desires sex, and his desire for sex is likely linked to his time in jail. While in jail, Dean is deprived of interaction with women for his five-year stint behind bars; nonetheless, all of Dean’s personality roots from his sex obsession. He is physically unable to interact with a woman without thinking about sexual interactions with her. As he walks down the street, the first and only characteristic he sees in a woman is sex. Because Dean lives a life on the road, he is constantly influenced by the different interactions he makes with women. These interactions collectively culminate the entirety of his suffering. Due to his many wives, children, and sexual interactions on the road, Dean’s suffering is evident.
Dean is a lonely tragic hero and the only cure for his loneliness is sex. Dean’s sex-addiction is the main fuel of his life, and it keeps him going; however, drugs and alcohol are supplements that contribute to his suffering. Another reason Dean’s suffering represents the hardships of living the American Dream is the reason he is on the road, Dean grew up without a father. This causes him to search for role-models while on the road living a life of poverty. Similar to how Sal obsesses over Dean, Dean takes after Old Bull Lee and his wife Jane, drug-obsessed junkies. This makes Dean into the drug-crazed man he appears to be. Linked to the roots of his poverty, Dean spends a majority of the little money he has on drugs and alcohol. Drugs and alcohol are the fuel for Dean’s madness which is a common theme displaying his suffering. Although Dean is not completely crazy at the beginning of the book, his struggle from the beginning is evident. Due to his actions as a result of using alcohol and drugs, uncontrollably, it is evident “that he is a madman”. As previously stated, Dean is a lonely man obsessed with drugs. Dean uses drugs as a coping mechanism for his loneliness and always associates drugs with friends. This proves, furthermore, as evidence for Dean’s suffering as a result of living on the road.
Dean Moriarty is a tragic hero because his suffering represents the hardships of living on the road. Dean lives his life without a compass to guide him in the right direction. He lives with no self-control or discipline, which leads him into bad situations. Although drugs, alcohol, and sex contribute to his suffering, Dean would not function without any single one of these, and this solidifies the proof why Dean is a tragic hero.
