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ON THE ROAD
(JACK KEROUAC)
,.
“Faith on the Run”
by Gary Lindberg, in Th e Confi dence
Man in American Literature (1982)
Introduction
In “Faith on the Run,” Gary Lindberg examines Jack Kerouac’s
modern American trickster fi gure, On the Road ’s Dean Moriarty,
and his inspiration, Kerouac’s friend Neal Cassady. Lindberg
describes Moriarty as a kind of Walt Whitman on speed,
a con man with an affable and transgressive attitude: “The
world of particulars and appearances is a world of hassles
and misleading entanglements, and much as Dean delights in
complication, he leaves it behind on the road, rising above it,
cruising past it, seeing beyond it, restoring his sense of control
and order and personal authority.” Lindberg argues that by
presenting Moriarty as “an archaic trickster whose primal
energy crashes through all cultural bounds,” Kerouac creates a
breaker of taboos, a universal fi gure who inspires others in his
pursuit of “‘the ragged and ecstatic joy of pure being.’”
f
We’ve all certainly got our money’s worth every time he fl eeced
us, haven’t we? . . . I feel compelled to defend my friend’s honor
Lindberg, Gary. “Faith on the Run.” Th e Confi dence Man in American Literature.
London: Oxford UP, 1982. 259–279.
137