The Dharma Bums (Identities and Issues in Literature)

At a glance:

The Work

Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, relatively upbeat and often humorous, is a fictional account of Kerouac’s attempt to unify his identity through Buddhism. The main character, Ray Smith, is accompanied on this quest by the physically and mentally agile savant Japhy Ryder (the poet Gary Snyder), a young yet accomplished Buddhist. The flower children of the 1960’s appreciated the novel’s sexual freedom and used The Dharma Bums as a guide to the “rucksack revolution” predicted by Ryder.

Dharma bums, as the name implies, roam in solitude,...

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