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Chapter 4
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
The next day, a woman named Princess comes with Japhy to Alvah’s cottage. She’d also visited Japhy’s cottage the first time Ray was there—at the time, she asked to climb Mount Matterhorn with Ray and Japhy, and Japhy proposed that they all have sex on the summit. Presently, she and Japhy stride in, and Japhy tells Ray that they’re going to teach Ray about yabyum. Ray first met Princess and developed feelings for her a year ago, but Princess met and fell in love with Japhy around this same time—now, she does anything he says.
Even though Princess appears to be a fellow bohemian Buddhist like the men in Ray’s social circle, Ray and Japhy are primarily interested in her sexually. Ray’s thought that Princess does anything Japhy says suggests that she shows up at Alvah’s cottage and gets naked simply because Japhy wants to—her sexual openness and rapport with Japhy actually seems to be Kerouac’s way of highlighting Japhy’s masculinity and bohemian lifestyle. This forces readers to question the status of women in Ray and Japhy’s club of white male Buddhists: can they be full members, or will the men always consider them sexual conquests rather than spiritual equals?
Themes
Ray goes to dim the light and fetch wine, and when he comes back, Princess, Japhy, and Alvah are naked. Japhy says it’s time to do yabyum, and Princess gets on top of him while he sits in the lotus position. Japhy tells Ray to try it out. But Ray gets nervous—he used to have feelings for Princess, and he just spent a whole year celibate because he decided that lust was evil. He has been enjoying himself perfectly well without sex.
The group’s yabyum orgy is the clearest example of how their value system combines Buddhism, counterculture, community, and hedonism (or the pursuit of pleasure). Previously, Ray struggled to reconcile Japhy’s drinking with his spirituality—and here, Ray’s anxiety about sex similarly reflects his struggle to choose virtue over vice. However, it seems that his friendship with Japhy is showing him that he doesn’t need to repress vice to choose virtue. Rather, their version of Buddhism creates a space for things conventionally seen as sinful, while also still providing a path toward enlightenment.
Themes
While Princess takes a turn with Alvah, Ray starts kissing her, and Japhy rolls a cigarette while proclaiming that no legitimate philosophy can reject sexuality. Eventually, Ray also has sex with Princess, and the group decides to have a yabyum orgy every Thursday night. Princess calls herself a Bodhisattva, and Ray says that this is how she relates to Buddhism as a woman. Japhy then explains that Tibetan Bodhisattvas used to hang out in caves and meditate, have orgies, and party. He remarks that the U.S. is sexually repressed and suggests that growing up here is punishment for bad karma in a past life. The group discusses this idea for a long time, until Japhy and Princess eventually decide to go back home.
Japhy thinks that religion and physical pleasure should work together, not in opposition: whereas other religions reject sexuality as sinful, the Dharma Bums’ Buddhism embraces it as part of a fulfilling life. Kerouac was a Catholic for much of his life (and Ray is a stand-in for Kerouac), so this period was perhaps his way of experimenting with a belief system that wasn’t as strict about sex. However, it’s still unclear if this vision of a fulfilling life is truly open to women, because the men don’t take Princess seriously when she says that she’s a Bodhisattva. Meanwhile, when Japhy talks about the U.S., he names the values of repression and consumerism that he wants to oppose. He seems to view Asian religion and culture as an enlightened alternative (even though he’s never been there).
Themes
Alvah tells Ray that he sees Japhy as a brilliant thinker and potential national hero. They debate whether Japhy will end up living in solitude like Han Shan or becoming a movie star. At night, Alvah can’t sleep, and Ray tries to tell him about Samadhi (a state of meditative trance or ecstasy) for the millionth time. Alvah prefers a hedonistic lifestyle full of reading, partying, and sex, but Ray thinks that it’s better to just spend life meditating under a tree. When Alvah says he’s tired of “all this Buddhist bullshit,” Ray insists that his perceptions are illusions that distract him from Dharmakaya, or the underlying reality of the universe. Ray thinks that Alvah’s hedonism will eventually lead him to unhappiness, but Alvah accuses Ray of being too serious and goes to sleep.
Alvah and Ray adore Japhy to the point that they believe he will save the world. The two versions of life they imagine—superstardom and asceticism—reflect the competing value systems of North American capitalism and Zen Buddhism, respectively. This suggests either that the other men are still stuck in their American assumptions about what counts as success, or that Japhy isn’t totally sure of his commitment to Buddhism either. Meanwhile, Ray, Alvah, and Japhy also present three competing views of counterculture: Ray prioritizes meditation and introspection; Alvah seeks fun and pleasure; and Japhy focuses on rebelling against social norms and living an alternative lifestyle. Kerouac ascribes one of these outlooks to each of the men seemingly because he appreciates the value of all of three.
Themes
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Ray meditates on the idea that the self is an illusion, and he thinks that he wants to become a better teacher to those around him. He looks out at the homes surrounding him in Berkeley and decides that their inhabitants are hiding away from the true reality of the heavens.
Ray reaffirms his commitment to achieving enlightenment through introspection, which is a way of trying to translate the teachings he reads about in Buddhist scriptures into his real life. His pity for the suburban residents surrounding him reflects his conclusion that North America’s consumeristic culture leads people away from true happiness by making them focus on material goods instead of spiritual truths.
Themes
