The View From On the Road: The Rhetorical Vision of Jack Kerouac - Softcover

Swartz, Omar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809323842 ISBN 13: 9780809323845

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Through careful analysis of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Omar Swartz argues that Kerouac’s influence on American society is largely rhetorical. Kerouac’s significance as a cultural icon can be best understood, Swartz asserts, in terms of traditional rhetorical practices and principles.

To Swartz, Kerouac is a rhetor who symbolically reconstructs his world and offers arguments and encouragements for others to follow. Swartz proposes that On the Road constitutes a “rhetorical vision,” a reality-defining discourse suggesting alternative possibilities for growth and change. Swartz asserts that the reader of Kerouac’s On theRoadbecomes capable of responding to the larger, confusing culture in a strategic manner. Kerouac's rhetorical vision of an alternative social and cultural reality contributes to the identity of localized cultures within the United States. 

About this title

About the Author

Omar Swartz is the author of Conducting Socially Responsible Research: Critical Theory, Neo-Pragmatism, and Rhetorical Inquiry and The Rise of Rhetoric and Its Intersections with Modern Critical Thought.  

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809323842
• ISBN 13: 9780809323845
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144