Honors Thesis Archive

Author	Bret Olson
Title	Revelations of an Angelheaded Hipster: Jack Kerouac's Compassionate Beat
Department	English
Advisor	Bob Davis
Year	2005
Honors	Departmental Honors
Full Text	View Thesis (730 KB) Note: This is a very large file; it may be easier to download the file to your computer and open it from there.
Abstract	In On The Road, Desolation Angels, and Dharma Bums, we find stories where life-faith is not nailed down, defined, or possessed, but lived, experienced, and searched for with fear and trembling . with diligent, sometimes, anguished resolve. By embracing the processes of becoming they gain an active life-faith and love-compassion for mankind. A successful faith is not based on passive transcendence. It does not involve sitting and waiting for visionary-mystical-spiritual experiences. It is only through active choices, made against all despair and angst, that one gains an active and successful life-faith (faith life). It is in living, responding, and acting compassionately to these "cut arms," these scars of life, that makes or breaks Kerouac's concept of faith.