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Chapter 22
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dharma Bums, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Enlightenment and Nature
Counterculture and Freedom
Friendship
Literature and Authenticity
Inclusion, Exclusion, and Community
Summary
Analysis
With $8 left in his pocket, Ray hitchhikes from El Paso to Las Cruces, New Mexico. He naps under a beautiful tree, helps a man move to make $4, and has a big dinner. He then spends the $4 hitching a ride to Los Angeles. The driver is a white man from Texas, and the other passengers are a Mexican couple and their baby. Ray tells everyone about Buddhism, and the white guy tells made-up stories about fighting. In LA, Ray dodges a policeman at the railyards and catches the local train to Santa Barbara, where he visits the beach and then catches the Midnight Ghost train. He falls asleep on a flatbed car, which is extremely dangerous, but he makes it safely to San Francisco with his last dollar.
Ray’s adventures continue, and he does his best to combine the instability and excitement of adventurous travel with the stability, wisdom, and peacefulness of his Buddhism. In teaching others about it, he plays his part in spreading wisdom and peace. Meanwhile, the other man is seemingly lying about being a tough fighter, which suggests that he’s desperately trying to prove his masculinity and justify his sense of pride. In other words, he’s totally caught up in mainstream cultural values that Ray rejects, like power, dominance, and self-promotion. But the man also makes it clear why these values are absurd and don’t lead to true happiness: he's so insecure and stubborn about them that he ends up telling obvious lies looking like a fool. Most importantly, his dishonesty, which represents the inauthenticity of mainstream culture, contrasts with Ray’s authentic humility and wisdom.
Themes
