Jaworski 1 Jordan Jaworski Professor Ready English 1050: The Beats and their Spawn 28 September 2015 Jack Kerouac’s Influences Found inThe Dharma Bums Serving as a sequel toOn the Road,The Dharma Bums, is one of Jack Kerouac’s most famous and spiritual novels. The semi-fictional short story, traces Kerouac’s experiences after the events found inOn the Road. Throughout the novel, Kerouac interacts with several “Dharma Bums” as well as many other prominent Beats leaders whose characters have been given different names within the novel. Through these interactions, Kerouac is able to explore the duality of his morals and desires. This duality is a result of the conflicting experiences of his wild “big city” life and his time hitching in the west when he was more in touch with nature. Most importantly,The Dharma Bums,explores Kerouac’s experiences with Buddhism and his constant struggle to fit Buddhist principals into his daily life and desires as he understood it. It also places a heavy emphasis on sex and how that relates to Kerouac’s understanding of Buddhism.
