Paper Topic:

Works comparison and contrast.

Comparison of `On the Road , Jack Kerouac , and `The Mimic Men V .S .Naipaul

Jack Kerouac is sometimes supposed to have written his most famous work `On the Road , a largely autobiographical piece , somewhat thinly disguised as a novel , during a three week drug crazed period . In fact he had been making notes for it over a period of some years . It was described by Aaron Latham in The New York Times Book Review as `Huckleberry Finn for the 20th Century ' and describes Kerouac`s search for happiness and freedom from the cares

and responsibilities of everyday life , as he criss-crosses America during a three year period at a time when many were realizing that `the American Dream ' was often a faulty image . The book , a stream of consciousness , was inspired by drugged up road trips he made with his friend Neal Cassady . It is Neal in the character of Sal who says in the novel :-

I can go anywhere in America and get what I want because it is the same

in every corner . I know the people , I know what they do . We give and take

and go in the incredibly complicated sweetness zigzagging every side

Kerouac prefigured the longing that many of his readers had for a more exciting and adventurous life , which , despite the problems encountered was worth far more , according to him , than a more conventional life style

Naipaul 's novel is set just a few years earlier , at the end of the Second World War . Its main protagonist is a very different character from those portrayed by Kerouac . Ralph Singh is a 40 year old former colonial minister , exiled in disgrace from his birth on an imaginary Caribbean island . In a run down room in a London suburb he writes his autobiography . He too admits to have been living in a fantasy world where `We pretended to be real , to be learning , to be preparing ourselves for life , we mimic men of the New World ' So we have the contrast between someone continually on the move in to escape and someone caught in one place , but also trying to escape the consequences of his past . One is a young man , the other in early middle age , but both have problems they are not really dealing with

In both cases the men meet situations they haven 't come across before and don 't quite know how to deal with . In Singh 's case these vary , for example the first occasion on which , right at the beginning of his story he sees snow , something he had expected , but never experienced . His response is unexpected , `Snow . At last my element ' But though the snow is beautiful and quickly covers up the bombed out ruins and chaos outside , he seems unable just to enjoy this change :-

The bombsite was wholly white every shrub , every discarded bottle

and tin was defined . I had seen . Yet what was I to do with so complete

a beauty

Then there...

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