On the Road: Imagery 12 key examples

Kerouac first describes Marylou's hair with a simile: it is "like a sea." Golden tresses are literally descriptive of her hair (a "tress" is a lock or ringlet of hair), but the sea comparison is metaphorical. He goes on to use imagery to help the reader imagine her blank stare, which Sal attributes to her awareness of the "evil gray New York pad" that she's in. Perhaps Marylou is doubting her marriage and the place it has landed her in. "Smoky blue" suggests her eyes have a gray tint to them.

Kerouac often uses words poetically—that is to say, he picks nouns, adjectives, and verbs that don't make sense literally, but do serve a poetic function and concisely give the reader information about the scene. Marylou's "country eyes" are a good example. What would make eyes "country"? A literal interpretation doesn't make sense, but a figurative one might suggest that, because Marylou is from the country, her eyes are not accustomed to sights like New York City. 

Finally, Sal uses a simile to compare Marylou to a "longbodied emaciated Modigliani surrealist woman." This is an allusion to Amedeo Modigliani, a modernist painter with connections to Cubists and Pablo Picasso. 

Sal's meticulous description of the road serves to transport the reader to the truck. A reader may not only see the humpy, worn-down road, but also feel its impact on the movement of the truck. Then Sal takes a bird's-eye view of his travels: as if he is looking at a map, he describes the truck moving over the "Nebraska nub." He returns to a terrestrial viewpoint and uses a simile that indicates his excitement at traveling. He is "an arrow that could shoot out all the way"—something that has the potential to move quickly. Notice that he says "could," rather than saying he is an "arrow that has shot out all the way." That choice of verb tense emphasizes that his journey is only just beginning. 

First, Sal's personified soul "leaps" to his destination. It's not clear whether he truly seeks what is in San Francisco or is simply driven by the same need to travel that propels the entire novel. Kerouac uses an impressionistic, stream of consciousness style to portray Sal's journey from Denver to the West Coast. Sal lists the places he passes through, sometimes with very brief imagery, such as when he calls Salt Lake City "a city of sprinklers," or characterizes Reno with "twinkling Chinese streets." These lists give the reader only glimpses into the sights of each city. The stream of consciousness writing here mimics Sal's travels: just as Sal only gets a few impressions of each place he goes through, the reader only has a few words with which to understand these landmarks.

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.

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. 

The orgone accumulator is a real invention inspired by the pseudoscientific work of Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian doctor and disciple of Sigmund Freud. Reich thought orgones functioned as a life force that penetrated the entire universe, and followers of alternative medicine adopted his ideas during the mid- and late 20th century. Among those followers was William Burroughs, the writer on whom Old Bull Lee is based. Burroughs did in fact build an orgone accumulator; later in life, he would become interested in other alternative psychotherapies and medicines, such as Scientology. As usual, Sal's friends dabble in all kinds of countercultural practices and beliefs.

Kerouac describes the unique orgone accumulator with imagery. It is, as he says, an "ordinary box," but Bull Lee has adorned his with branches in the hope that he can improve its functioning. When Sal metaphorically calls the orgone accumulator a "mystical outhouse," he is both being humorous and helping the reader imagine this unique contraption, which we can say with certainty no reader will ever see in real life. The use of the adjective "exfoliate" here is quite unusual. Readers may be more accustomed to seeing "exfoliate" used as a verb, perhaps on soap bottles. Kerouac instead means that the orgone accumulator is composed of things gathered (ex-) from nearby foliage (-foliate). 

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. 

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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.

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.

Recall that On the Road is, according to Kerouac, about a spiritual quest for meaning as much as it is a series of physical journeys. Fittingly, in one of the final chapters of the novel Sal sees a biblical scene: shepherds. Shepherds have a crucial place in the Bible's New Testament, both as actual people (such as when shepherds visit the newborn Jesus) and as a symbol of Jesus's guidance of humankind. Accordingly, Sal sees these Mexican shepherds working in rustic, pre-industrial conditions, and he feels as if they are a part of the "golden world that Jesus came from," a world of poverty and labor. 

Kerouac takes great care to describe this biblical scene with imagery. The shepherds are dressed in "long flowing robes" and carry crops and staves. Because of the heat, the desert is "shimmering," and the sheep kick up dust. The passage is full of light: twice Kerouac uses the word "golden," and both the sunshine and the heat are mentioned.

Sal describes first the summer night, then the sound of the stranger approaching him. The stranger himself is like a biblical figure, a saint, or a hobo: old and long-haired with only a backpack. His advice to Sal is suitably obscure, and he then disappears into the darkness he came from. Even Sal doesn't know what "Go moan for man" means, but interprets it as a command to continue traveling America, this time on foot. Is this mysterious figure another iteration of the Shrouded Traveler that pushed Dean and Sal onward in their dreams?

This moment isn't an allusion to anything specific, but note the biblical imagery and even word choice that Kerouac employs here. The figure of the ascetic saint, as well as verbiage such as "lo" and "pilgrimage," remind the reader that Sal's journeys are meant to be for his spiritual fulfillment. The stranger's advice suggests that Sal must suffer for other people—"moan for man"—like a martyr or a Jesus figure.