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

Mr. Omar Swartz

ISBN 10: 0809322560 / ISBN 13: 9780809322565

Published by Southern Illinois University Press October 1999, 1999

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 275316

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The View From On the Road: The Rhetorical Vision of Jack Kerouac
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press October 1999
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809322560
• ISBN 13: 9780809322565
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: USED Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • LITERARY Biography

About this title

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 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.