Francesca
Baldini
EN 385
On The Road
Throughout On the Road, readers are confronted with several modes of travel,
both literal and physical. One recurrent
type of travel is hitchhiking. This style of travel is particularly fascinating
because it involves individual travel that remains dependent on another person.
Immediately, readers are thrown into Sal’s journey to Denver. As a 21st
century reader, hitchhiking seems completely implausible and removed from our
current styles of travel. In order to be a successful hitchhiker, one is
dependent on another person. This type of travel is entirely different from any
other in that it is individual and yet so dependent on another person.
Sal begins his journey to Denver by
hitchhiking, a type of travel that creates a bond between two complete
strangers. The connection made between both parties the journey itself however,
the connection also remains mutual—both people involved need something from the
other. While hitchhiking can be seen as unsafe, in the beginning, it is clear
that Sal offers something to those that pick him up each time. Sometimes the
driver just wants company and other times, with the mother in the beginning,
the driver would like someone’s help with their journey. While travel is so related
to making a connection, hitchhiking connects people together only through their
journey itself, which is still similar to modern day travel but different in
the sense that typically only two people are involved.
One aspect that stood out to me was
the fact that Sal struggled sometimes to make conversation with those that pick
him up. This ties back to one of the recurrent themes in On the Road, which suggests that expansive land breed’s loneliness
or wholeness. On the Road grapples
with ideas of what America means. Although Sal goes back and forth with his own
notions, readers are also asked to question what this massive amount of land
means. Are there connections between people across the country? Or do we remain
isolated in our own environments? As a teacher, these questions seem so related
to the way we connect with students. Many students seem distant, not in terms
of geography but in terms of relatedness. How do we reach students that seem to
be too far away? On the Road makes me
question whether or not hitchhiking can exist in the real world, or even in
teaching. I think as long as the relationship between teacher and student
remains one where both people can learn something from the other, that form of
travel can exist and we can meet halfway so to speak. However, there are
instances, like in On the Road where
the relationship is too forced and both people feel uncomfortable. I do like
the idea of involved travel in teaching and journeying to meet students
wherever they may be.
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