I have not been allowed to leave my room in eight days. In that time, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road has proved a magnificent companion. To be fair, I began reading On the Road late this past July, as I spent my days working in a men’s clothing store and my evenings bartending at a craft beer and wine bar in a beach town in North Carolina. In the midst of the global pandemic that abruptly ended my Junior year of college, this work, whose first draft Kerouac wrote on a three-week bender, has provided me with a literary escape that has led me to reevaluate my life and my future.

On the Road follows its narrator Sal Paradise for a few years of his life, which he considers his time “on the road” as he travels aimlessly across the country in search of freedom and adventure with his friend Dean Moriarty. In fact, the first part of the story follows Sal Paradise as he leaves his Aunt’s home in New York and heads west with the goal of reaching San Francisco, or “Frisco” in Sal’s terms. The book was first published in 1957 but its action takes place in the late 1940s and makes continuous references to the GI checks Sal receives that fund his cross-country adventures. As a college student, Sal’s ability to travel as a result of his GI checks reminds me of the freedoms and opportunities this past summer provided me with, despite the looming crisis of the pandemic. Most of Sal’s adventures are aimless, but Kerouac’s writing leaves you with the sense that the massive world event that was World War II had a lasting effect on his life, thus inspiring his wanderings.

For stretches of On the Road, no plot progression takes place: Sal merely reaches new places and reacts in relation to his surroundings. Over the summer, I found myself becoming bored with Sal’s lack of direction; at times it feels as though the book’s characters journey to one coast of America solely with the intention of turning around once they get there, and heading back towards the opposite one.  But, I eagerly returned to the book after one of my Fraternity brothers tested positive for Covid-19, launching me into the start of a week’s long quarantine that has no end in sight. What once seemed like an aimless account of frivolous and random adventures seemingly began to have meaning. While  reading this novel, I have also spent a lot of  reflecting on my summer and on the adventures I had in spite of the virus. Living and working on the beach in North Carolina was my “road” in these trying times. Reflecting on this now, there is most definitely an opportunity bestowed on a privileged few, like myself and Sal Paradise, who are given the opportunity to wander and explore even in the midst of the most trying times. But, the beauty of literature is that this experience can become available to everyone, through works like On The Road.

I’ve been quarantined in my room in my fraternity house for the past eight days, and in that time, I’ve begun to totally rethink my relationship with my friends, my school, and the world. Through this experience, Jack Kerouac’s words from On the Road, have now presented a whole world’s worth of ideas and opportunities that I’ve never contemplated until now. Who knows what the next year will bring; maybe I’ll move into a van and drive across the country, or maybe I’ll take some corporate job somewhere. But before I resign to the latter, I know I will think long and hard about the youth and freedom that I possess now, knowing full well that I have the power to make change, if I want to. That alone gives me strength; all thanks to the words of Jack Kerouac.