Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Sal is just another hitchhiker person that leeches off others that help. An example of this is that Sal followed Terry and he leeched of her, using her to find a job and as a romantic interest. Additionally, he is traveling all over the country with no definite location to go. His friends all help him while he does not return his help or their favor. In this way he abuses his friends and those around him, but he respects Dean a great deal.
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Sal is a hypocrite. He goes on about how he believes there should be a relationship before sex however he just sees a random girl and goes for it. Love was purely based on her looks instead of what made her an individual. The book on a whole is getting a bit more interesting. I found it odd that sal seemed so obsessed with dean but then suddenly forgets about him.
ReplyDeleteI agree, but unlike Dean and the others, he actually gets to know Terry (however short period of time) before having sex with her. It was interesting how Sal actually took a job and settled down with Remi and his wife, seeing as they argue all the time. I think that when Remi says that everyone is a natural born thief, he has a point. Most people have stolen at least something, like an idea or something else. It was interesting how suddenly things could change, like one day Sal was has a steady paying job and then the next day, he's broke and riding a bus half way across California.
ReplyDeleteSal and Dean are characters foils. Dean is a charismatic womanizer, and Sal is a less confident follower of Dean. Sal is searching for himself but maybe he sees a better-him in Dean. This is way Sal misses Dean as soon as his aunt mentions him.It is not that Sal forgets about Dean, but it is that Sal doesn't need to think about Dean at the time because he is happy with his current condition in a certain point of his life
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ReplyDeleteI think that, rather than being hypocritical, Sal doesn't know what he wants out of life, women, friends, and himself. He keeps moving around, and says he'll die if he stays in San Fransisco, because that isn't the right place for him. He goes back to wandering because he doesn't know where he'll really fit in and enjoy himself. He contradicts himself on his policy regarding women, because he believes he wants a certain thing from them, but then something happens to change his mind, and it keeps changing back and forth.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this might be going too far but...I remembered how we were talking about how people's last names meant something and I was thinking...Dean's last name is Moriarty, MORE-iarty. He wants more adventure, more excitement, and more women, as shown by having his wife and a mistress one after the other.
I agree! i thought that was pretty weird also. He sees a random girl on the bus and then sleeps with her and even questioned to himself that she had to be with a pimp. I also thought that it was ironic how Terry and Sal suspected each other. But I dont think he totally based his love for her on looks, she told him about her rough past and how her husband would beat her and she was forced to move and leave her son with family and felt that she had nothing left to do but "brood and get mad". Im guessing that he connected with the fact that she was running away from her family and sympathized with her. I think he formed a pretty good connection with her in such a short period of time. Altho he is still slightly going against what he said earlier about relationships between men and women. And Sal seems a bit less obsessed with Dean as he continues his journey across the United States. In chapter 13 when he is with Terry, Rickey, Johnny and Ponzo he says "I forgot all about the East and all about Dean and Carlo and the bloody road."(97) Sal seems more focused on trying to survive while he is constantly on the move. He also finds that his visions of the West are not confirmed. Sal concludes that LA is more like a jungle, he notices groups of high school teenagers passing in cars and yelling out to Terry and him as they walk along side the high way. Sal misses New York and decides that "New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in the streets. LA is a jungle."(86)
ReplyDeleteI don't think Sal is a hypocrite at all for liking Terry. As Emma said, he connected with her over the fact that they both had rough pasts. But I think that Sal doesn't so much want to move around the country so much as he wants to avoid having a "steady" job. He left his first good job in Denver to go to San Francisco for no apparent reason. Then in San Francisco, he falls out with his old friend Remi, and some of that had to do with the pressure Sal faced with having a job. And then when he goes to live in Terry's hometown, he longs for New York just because he realizes that currently he's living a life where all he does is work hard and still struggle to make ends meet.
ReplyDeleteThese chapters definitely show that Sal is running from life, but he doesn't know why, and he continuously questions himself. Also he keeps saying that he wants to go back to NY, but he keeps spending money on alcohol.
ReplyDelete- even though sal uses terry for sex, terry does the same to sal, like she totally knew they were going into the hotel room to do it, it wasn't one-sided.
ReplyDelete- Also, Sal is a wimpy character, he keeps getting himself into trouble and wasting all of his money. As an escape he always asks his aunt for $50 each time he messes up, like a reset button. $50 at that time was a lot of money, he should have matured and learned how to manage his money better instead of running to his aunt for help.
- Sal's relationship with Terry is like a fantasy, finding a beautiful woman from another nationality and living with her and picking cotton to manage to stay alive. Just like how he asks his aunt for more money, Sal doesn't take life seriously, he thinks its just a game he can keep resetting if he messes up.