On the Road: Metaphors 14 key examples

Dean and Carlo's abstract conversation is so incessant that they call it a machine. It seems the two men have become fast friends. Sal, who cannot sleep, asks them to "stop the machine." When they ask his opinion of their conversation, he instead responds, perhaps sarcastically, that they've impressed him: listening to their conversation, he says with a simile, is like watching a fantastically huge yet intricate watch operate.

The Berthoud Pass is a route over the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. As usual, Kerouac sprinkles his prose with allusions to American landmarks and people. This allusion also suggests that Sal has done some traveling across America before the events of On the Road.

Phrases such as "raw bulge and bulk of my American continent" are excellent examples of Kerouac's style. This description is part literal, part metaphorical: America does have a lot of literal bulk, and it does bulge out toward the sea from Sal's vantage point, but the "raw" adjective can only be metaphorical. Reasonable readers may come to their own conclusions as to what "raw" may mean in this sentence. That combination of literal and metaphorical works to create an image in the reader's mind of the eagle's eye view Sal has as he looks over mountains, plains, and coasts. It's not likely Sal can see over the entirety of the continent, but his travels allow him to imagine the scope of the country. 

The personified state of New York tosses a brown haze over the horizon that Sal imagines he can see. Sal contrasts this with California, and with a simile he calls California "white like washlines." It's not that lines used for drying clothes are generally white, but instead that white sheets and clothes are often hung up on clotheslines. Sal's pale imagery for California might be a reference to the fog there, and it might also reflect his feeling that there isn't anything on the West Coast for him—at least, not yet.

Sal uses a simile to describe Teresa's skin color as "brown as grapes." Normally we think of grapes as purple or white, but both varieties can appear brown. The simile suggests ripeness and sweetness, appropriate associations for a lover. Another simile compares Teresa's legs to "little sticks." Readers may disagree on what these consecutive natural similes suggest.

Sal metaphorically calls himself and Teresa "two tired angels" forgotten in Los Angeles (a city name which literally means "the angels") and figuratively shoved to the back of a shelf. These metaphors suggest that Sal and Teresa are good people, but they are worn out by their circumstances. Perhaps the thing that has tired them is their respective struggles with societal norms. After all, both of them are living outside of those norms: Teresa, for her part, is countercultural in the 1940s simply for her willingness to give birth outside of wedlock and sleep with a man she has just met.

Sal's allusion is to French author Henri-Alban Fournier's only novel: Le Gran Meaulnes (literally The Great Meaulnes), a coming-of-age story about a teenager's obsession with a girl. The details of the novel aren't important since, as Sal says, he prefers "reading the American landscape" to reading the novel. This metaphor suggests a few things. Firstly, Sal's travelling is not simply pleasurable, but also educative. Perhaps (like reading canonical works of literature) his journeys even help him gather material, inspiration, and experiences for writing. Second, Sal's attention to the American landscape is as intelligent and focused as the act of reading. 

In this formulation, both kinds of "reading"—novels and examining the landscape—are equally important for Sal's writing. Finally, note that Sal chooses the American landscape over the French novel. The detail is small, and Kerouac may not have meant anything by it, but readers may also interpret this moment as a prioritization of America over Europe, or of the new over the old.

There's a lot of metaphorical language packed into this passage. Firstly, fury metaphorically spits from Dean's eyes, just as fire might spit from a volcano. (It's worth noting that the verb "spat" is often paired with literal or figurative fire in the English language, so this word choice suggests a blaze.) Secondly, "great glows of joy" beam from Dean's eyes when he's pleased. In both of these metaphors, his emotions are heated and bright. This likely isn't surprising to the reader at this point: Dean is a hot-tempered, emotional, and fickle man.

Dean's muscles are also personified here. As if they are a separate, autonomous part of him, they "[twitch] to live and go." This makes it seem as if Dean's drive to travel and explore comes from his very essence. 

Since Sal is the narrator, readers know that these observations come from him. Sal holds Dean in high regard and pays special attention to him, especially through his descriptions. This passage is one of many examples of Sal's nearly obsessive friendship with Dean. 

The allusion is to the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, a 19th century composer who, by Kerouac's time, would have been recognized as a great artist. By mentioning that Greb acts out Verdi's operas, Kerouac intends readers to understand that Greb is both cultured and eccentric: he doesn't just know these famous operas but loves them to the point of embarrassing himself in public in order to express his enthusiasm. 

With a simile, Sal says that Greb "crawls like a big spider" in public, a brief but evocative image that allows the reader to imagine this eccentric, unkempt man slouching through Long Island. Sal metaphorically says that Greb's "excitement blew out of his eyes in stabs of fiendish light." Obviously this phrase cannot be literal, but the reader has no trouble understanding what it means: Greb's enthusiasm often seems brilliant and even violent.

Once again, Kerouac alludes to the comedian W. C. Fields, although here he places the allusion into Bull's mouth. The character of Bull Lee is based on the Beat writer William Burroughs, and Bull Lee's family in On the Road are based on Burroughs's actual family, although it's not clear whether Burroughs called his son "the Little Beast." Regardless, the allusion serves to establish a point of commonality between Bull and Sal: they both have a thorough understanding of American culture of all kinds. 

Kerouac's description of Bull employs both metaphor and imagery. He metaphorically writes that Bull "[unrolls] himself from the car bone by bone," which suggests that Bull is skinny and slow-moving, just as Burroughs was in real life. Kerouac also creates a thorough image of Bull that includes what he wears and how he moves. Kerouac is a master of characterization through imagery and dialogue, and this moment is no exception. 

Readers already know by this point that Dean's relationships with women, including with Marylou, are fraught. Marylou, for her part, adores Dean violently and jealously. Sal uses a simile to compare Marylou's possessiveness over Dean to a desire to kill him and hide his decapitated head. The shocking simile is fitting—Marylou wants Dean to herself, kept in her home for all time. The reader might struggle to understand how this desire is anything like murder, but to Sal, who sees Dean's travels as a crucial part of him, Marylou might as well have killed Dean (or at least the Dean Sal knows) if she convinces him to settle down.

Sal also says that Marylou knows her love "will never bear fruit." It's fairly common, even in texts as old as the Bible, to metaphorically compare the product of something to fruit, since fruit is the product of a grown tree. The "fruit" that Marylou knows she'll never get from Dean might be his full attention or commitment.

Finally, note that Sal's description of Marylou's "dotage" also contains descriptions of Dean himself: Dean is "so amazingly himself, all raging and sniffy and crazy-wayed." Dean has this kind of hold on not only several women, but also Sal and Carlo. Does Sal also want something from Dean that Dean can't provide?

Kerouac often characterized On the Road as a novel about a spiritual search for meaning, and he was insistent that his Catholicism drove this search. He would also, like Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx), learn about Buddhism, although Buddhist leaders didn't always think the two men got the belief system right. Regardless, this passage is an excellent example of the spirituality present in On the Road. Bodily deprivation has led Sal to a transcendent state, and it leads him to "realize" several things about the nature of his soul, including that it has been reborn "numberless times." With a simile, he compares the easy, forgettable process of reincarnation to "falling asleep and waking up."

He then speaks of the "intrinsic Mind," a unifying life force that he says powers the cycle of death and rebirth. This concept is far from original to him, but the Beats played a large part in introducing these ideas to the United States. The 1960s counterculture movement would also invest in the idea of a unifying life force, which writer Aldous Huxley called the "Mind at Large." To explain this concept to readers, Kerouac metaphorically says life and death are ripples across the intrinsic Mind, then expands on that with a simile: reincarnation is to the intrinsic Mind what wind is to a sheet of water. The ripples move across the surface, but they do not change any inherent properties of that surface. 

Finally, Sal says he "felt sweet, swinging bliss," an alliterative and metaphorical description of his elevated mood. He expands on this with a simile that compares the sensation to "a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein." Kerouac tried, but was never addicted to, opioids like heroin, but many of his friends, including William Burroughs (Old Bull Lee) were lifetime users, and recreational opioid use is still associated with the Beat Movement.

Sal uses a simile to compare his arrival into Dean's household to that of an "evil angel," which readers could interpret several ways. In the theology of some sects of Christianity, and perhaps most famously in John Milton's 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost, devils are angels who have chosen to rebel against God. Working from this framework, a reader might understand Sal as calling himself a demon here—and certainly he's sowing chaos into Camille's relatively comfortable and stable life with Dean.

Additionally, in the Bible angels are frequently harbingers of instructions from God that require humans to undertake difficult tasks or journeys. The parallels between that kind of angel and Sal in the above passage are obvious. In the same "evil angel" simile, Sal characterizes Dean and Camille's household as "the home of the snow-white fleece." Once again, this highly metaphorical description could be validly interpreted in a few ways, but the obvious reading is that Camille is an innocent bystander in this situation, "snow-white" and soft. Finally, Sal turns his earlier simile into a metaphor: "the angel had arrived," by which he means he himself has shown up on Dean's doorstep, and his presence spurs Dean into an insane need to travel. 

A simile compares the tone of the horn with a bell. Dean stands almost reverently as he listens, his body moving. In fact, Dean sweats so much that his collar is metaphorically "tormented"! Sal says Dean's sweat is "pouring and splashing"—readers would usually take this as metaphorical language, and that's not an incorrect way to read it here, but Sal's insistence that the sweat "actually" forms a "pool at his feet" casts some doubt on whether this deluge of sweat is metaphorical or literal. Once again, Kerouac's style mixes the figurative and the actual to heighten moments of altered consciousness and high energy. 

A chapter later, Dean reflects on the jazz music the men heard the night before. Dean's dialogue is often obscure yet poetic, and isolating the specific literary devices that Kerouac employs here can be hard. But it's certain that metaphorical language and imagery are both a part of Dean's speech.

"Ah well"—Dean laughed—"now you're asking me impon-der-ables—ahem! Here's a guy and everybody's there, right? Up to him to put down what's on everybody's mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah, but get it, and then he rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it. All of a sudden somewhere in the middle of the chorus he gets it—everybody looks up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries it. 

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There's a rhythm to Dean's speech in the same way that music has a rhythm, and his idiosyncratic dialogue is highly stylized, even when the ideas or claims are hard to follow. Dean claims that a jazz musician needs to "put down" (or express) "what's on everybody's mind." He metaphorically says that the musician must begin by "[lining] up his ideas"—perhaps introducing musical themes he'll return to—but then "rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it." This metaphorical language demonstrates how high-stakes Dean believes jazz can be. The musician metaphorically "picks it up and carries it." Dean seems to use "it" here in a colloquial sense, to refer to an unnamable essence or mood that the musician provokes with his ex tempore playing.

A simile compares the tone of the horn with a bell. Dean stands almost reverently as he listens, his body moving. In fact, Dean sweats so much that his collar is metaphorically "tormented"! Sal says Dean's sweat is "pouring and splashing"—readers would usually take this as metaphorical language, and that's not an incorrect way to read it here, but Sal's insistence that the sweat "actually" forms a "pool at his feet" casts some doubt on whether this deluge of sweat is metaphorical or literal. Once again, Kerouac's style mixes the figurative and the actual to heighten moments of altered consciousness and high energy. 

A chapter later, Dean reflects on the jazz music the men heard the night before. Dean's dialogue is often obscure yet poetic, and isolating the specific literary devices that Kerouac employs here can be hard. But it's certain that metaphorical language and imagery are both a part of Dean's speech.

"Ah well"—Dean laughed—"now you're asking me impon-der-ables—ahem! Here's a guy and everybody's there, right? Up to him to put down what's on everybody's mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah, but get it, and then he rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it. All of a sudden somewhere in the middle of the chorus he gets it—everybody looks up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries it. 

Cite this Quote

There's a rhythm to Dean's speech in the same way that music has a rhythm, and his idiosyncratic dialogue is highly stylized, even when the ideas or claims are hard to follow. Dean claims that a jazz musician needs to "put down" (or express) "what's on everybody's mind." He metaphorically says that the musician must begin by "[lining] up his ideas"—perhaps introducing musical themes he'll return to—but then "rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it." This metaphorical language demonstrates how high-stakes Dean believes jazz can be. The musician metaphorically "picks it up and carries it." Dean seems to use "it" here in a colloquial sense, to refer to an unnamable essence or mood that the musician provokes with his ex tempore playing.

Sal metaphorically says his children will imagine him traveling "on the sidewalks of life," a slow and responsible manner of transportation that couldn't be further from how he actually lived. He claims his life is actually a metaphorical "riot," and then calls it a "senseless nightmare road," upon which a traveler goes much faster than on a sidewalk. This is yet another instance in which the road is not only a literal centerpiece of the novel, but also a symbol of the Beat way of life—fast, dangerous, and exciting.

Dean's departure is described with imagery: first of the "long red dusk" which produces a personified shadow that copies Dean's movements, then of trains. The locomotives cannot literally float above Dean, but perhaps this image is meant to convey that trains rush past with the same sort of senseless speed that Dean exhibits throughout the novel. Dean's personified shadow "[apes] his walks and thoughts and very being"—in other words, it copies him. This copy of Dean, through photographs, shadows, and writing, is all Sal will have left when Dean leaves.

The phrase "plain of night" is a metaphorical combination of two sights Sal sees as he comes into Dallhart: the nighttime sky and the flat, dark landscape of Texas. Like a star turned upside down, the town "lay glimmering." Sal goes on to describe the night sky by personifying both the moon and the morning star. He says the moon "fattened" and became larger. He also describes the moon's color changes throughout the night with imagery: first it's rusty, and then it's mellow, which some readers might understand as suggesting a softer color. The moon rolls down the sky, and as dawn comes nearer the "morning star contended," a second personification which suggests the moon and the brightest star are competing for spots in the sky. 

The "high road" is usually an English language metaphor to describe taking the morally superior path, but here Sal means it literally: their car is climbing up a slope to the top of a plateau, or the flat surface atop an elevated area. Sal describes their drive with imagery. This road goes up along a mountain that passes through clouds and mist, then takes the travelers into smoky Monterrey. An excellently descriptive simile compares the factories' smoke to fleece, which goes across the metaphorical "bowl of day" like writing. This sentence combines multiple literary devices that suggest different images, but a reader taking the entire sentence together might imagine the frosted and patterned glass of a decorative bowl, turned upside down to form the sky.