Previous
Chapter 5
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
Japhy and Ray set off to climb Mount Matterhorn. Ray makes do with tennis shoes and Japhy’s thin backup sleeping bag. For provisions, Japhy just brings bacon and bulgur wheat, his ubiquitous tea, some chocolate pudding, and various dried fruits and vegetables. Ray is surprised to see the tiny food bag, but Japhy promises that it’ll be enough once the food is rehydrated, and there’s no need to drink alcohol at high altitudes.
Ray’s amateurish outfit contrasts with Japhy’s expert preparation for the hike. This parallels the way that Ray sees himself as a spiritual rookie, just starting on the path towards enlightenment through Buddhism, while Japhy is further along. Like his minimalistic lifestyle, Japhy’s basic food provisions suggest that not much material sustenance is needed for spiritual fulfillment. And his promise that Ray won’t need to drink alcohol reflects the way he sees nature as a pure alternative to boring, vulgar, and unenlightened human society. Ray might need alcohol to enjoy himself when he’s around other people, but Japhy promises that being in nature will fill the same void.
Themes
As they walk across the UC Berkeley campus toward Japhy’s shack, Japhy tells Ray about growing up on a farm in Oregon and working as a fire lookout, skiing, and climbing mountains during his summers off from college. Afterward, Japhy explains, he started logging, which he remembers just as fondly as Ray remembers railroading. Ray thinks that Japhy is “a real man,” unlike the middle-class suburban flunkies that places like UC Berkeley are designed to produce. Japhy thinks that such people are irresponsible because they just flush the toilet and forget about what happens to their waste.
Ray views Japhy as “a real man” because he grew up and continues to live in close proximity to nature. Again, this shows that Kerouac considers the wilderness more “real” and authentic than human settlements—especially the suburbs, which are a totally artificial environment, built by and for consumer capitalism. Japhy’s comment about flushing the toilet extends this contrast between the “real” world of nature and the phony, artificial world of human technology and society (which he argues deprive people of responsibility for their actions). Ray’s disdain for universities like UC Berkeley shows that he considers Japhy’s worldly kind of knowledge far superior to bookish academic knowledge. This also extends to the kind of art they produce, which explains why Ray praises Japhy’s poetry. In turn, Kerouac follows the same artistic principle by writing autobiographically, in an effort to represent his real experience (rather than just engage his imagination).
Themes
By Japhy’s shack, the eccentric librarian and mountaineer Henry Morley meets Ray and Japhy with his car. Henry also lives in a backyard shack, and Ray realizes that he’s friends with Rheinhold Cacoethes, the literary critic who hosted the poetry reading in San Francisco. Henry and Rheinhold talk in the same sarcastic, rambling way, which Ray assumes that Henry probably invented. Unlike Japhy, Henry brings way too much equipment: he wants to sleep on an air mattress and has a bunch of canned food and unnecessary mountaineering equipment. The group takes Henry’s car across California to the trailhead leading to Mount Matterhorn.
As a librarian and friend to literary critics, Henry Morley represents the academic, theoretical kind of knowledge that Ray looks down on, in contrast to Japhy’s rugged, individualistic knowledge about human life and spirituality. Henry’s extra equipment also reflects his conventionality when contrasted with Japhy: whereas Japhy is self-reliant and doesn’t need all sorts of expensive technology, Henry weighs himself down with unnecessary baggage.
Themes
Henry is a “madman” who does erratic things, like bringing Ray along to help him seduce women without explaining his plans beforehand, randomly showing up at Alvah’s cottage with furniture that doesn’t fit inside, or getting Ray to spend hours emptying the mud out of his basement. The whole drive, Henry rants constantly and incomprehensibly on topics ranging from North Pole explorers and the medieval city-state of Ragusa to the danger of turning into a gnome after losing a bus ticket.
Besides providing comic relief, Henry’s bizarre way of talking also demonstrates how he is fixated on a useless, theoretical kind of knowledge and art: his words are meaningless flights of fancy that have nothing to do with the reality that the men are experiencing. Meanwhile, for Japhy, words are precious precisely because they can portray and shape real life. So even though Henry and Japhy are in the same friend group of Buddhists and poets, they seem to value Buddhism and poetry for opposite reasons. As a result, Ray views Japhy as a valuable friend and learns a lot from him, whereas Henry is just annoying and contributes little to Ray or Japhy’s life (besides transportation).
Themes
Get the entire The Dharma Bums LitChart as a printable PDF.
The guys drive up into the mountains and get a drink at a bar full of hunters who obsessively ask if they’ve seen any deer. In fact, they’d nearly hit one on the way. Japhy complains that Ray is drinking away all their money, but Ray says that he always drinks, no matter how much money he has. The bar is full of taxidermized moose and deer, and Japhy and Ray have port wine. Henry doesn’t drink.
Even though the hunters are also visiting the mountains, they hunters represent the mindless, conventional worldview that Ray and Japhy are rebelling against. The hunters only go into the woods to shoot animals, and they don’t seem to care about anything else. Ray and Japhy, however, are exploring the wilderness as part of a spiritual calling. Meanwhile, Ray’s comment about his drinking hints that it’s more of a problem than meets the eye.
Themes
Japhy starts talking about his home in the Oregon woods; his dream of wandering around Japan on foot, searching for Buddhist temples and monks; and his disapproval of the hunters, who will get bad karma for killing innocent animals. Henry says that he’s neutral about Buddhism, but Japhy points out that Buddhism is all about neutrality. Henry goes on another long rant about the bar, contraception, the quality of California milk, and the idea of Japhy wearing an expensive suit. The hunters briefly chat with them, but they soon give up when they realize that the three men are just mountain climbers.
Henry and Japhy’s dueling monologues again represent the contrast between their modes of engaging with the world: Japhy has lofty aspirations and commits to solid values, while Henry has no values and just makes meaningless observations about the world around him without participating in it. Of course, this is why Ray values Japhy’s friendship so much more than Henry’s: Ray and Japhy both aspire to live meaningful, interesting, and impactful lives.
Themes
After Ray and Japhy have two drinks, the guys get back in Henry’s car. They have no chance of reaching the trailhead before dawn, so they decide to camp along the road. They find a beautiful grove of evergreen trees, but they realize that Henry forgot to bring his sleeping bag, so they have to lay two of them flat like blankets. Henry does have his air mattress, but he uncomfortably tosses and turns all night on it, which keeps Ray awake and frustrated until daybreak.
Even though the group hasn’t reached Mount Matterhorn yet, Ray is already getting a taste of the wilderness’s serene beauty. Henry, meanwhile, ends up struggling to sleep because he overcomplicated things for himself: he brought an enormous air mattress when he just needed a much smaller, simpler sleeping bag. This absurdity reflects Kerouac’s broader critiques of mainstream U.S. culture, while Kerouac implies makes life miserable by overcomplicating it through technology and consumerism. It also speaks to the idea that academic intellectuals like Henry pointlessly choose complexity and sophistication over simplicity and reliability.
Themes
