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Part 2, Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On the Road, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom, Travel, and Wandering
Society, Norms, and Counterculture
Friendship
Writing
America
Privilege and Prejudice
Summary
Analysis
Sal, Dean, Marylou, and Ed took off at night for Paterson, New Jersey. They sped along and Dean had to periodically reach out the window and wipe a hole in the ice-covered windshield to see through. He often “gestured furiously,” as he talked, taking both his hands off the steering wheel.
Dean has no respect for speed limits and no worries about safety while driving with an ice-covered windshield with both hands off the wheel.
Themes
Sal says that he went with Dean “for no reason.” He had been seeing a woman named Lucille in New York and thought he wanted to marry her. He told Dean that he wanted to marry someone and settle down, because “this can’t go on all the time—all this franticness and jumping around.” They pulled into New York in the early morning.
