Comparing Women In Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans And On The Road

Mistreatment of Women

The novels The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and On the Road by Jack Kerouac all connect using the feminist theory by showing the ongoing mistreatment and lack of respect for women by men. The feminist theory analyzes gender inequality, mistreatment of women, and the issue of objectifying women in society. All of the men in these novels by the name of Ray Smith,

Japhy Ryder, Leo Percepied, Sal Paradise, Dean Moriarty, and Ed Dunkel objectify women and are only interested in their physical attributes. The men in these novels cheat on women, use them for personal sexual pleasure, and abandon them when most convenient for themselves.

The Dharma Bums’ Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder use their sex drive to become involved

with

Ray Smith does this because he is lonely and doesn’t know how to keep a woman. So, he sleeps around with multiple women and uses them for sexual favors. Surrounded by women, “[he] still hadn't got one for [himself], not that [he] was trying too hard, but sometimes [he] felt lonely to see everybody paired off and having a good time and all [he] did was curl up in my sleeping bag in the rosebushes and sigh and say bah. For [him] it was just red wine in my mouth and a pile of firewood” (78). Ray Smith has grown up into his adult life sex repressed, living a boring life, so he uses his built up sexual tension to exploit women. Ray Smith has sexual relations with multiple random women whom

Khanna 2 he meets. When “[he] was a little kid in Oregon [he] didn't feel that [he] was an American at all, with all that suburban ideal and sex repression” (96). Ray Smith shows his objectivity of women and lack of respect by using them and then leaving them. Japhy Ryder exploits women in a

Japhy wants to make it seem like he is doing it to be very into the ritual and that he wants to do it often because he wants to make the Bodhisattva and himself happy. When in reality, it is only because Japhy wants to do it for himself because he gets to have sex, with no strings attached, with the Bodhisattva.

In The Subterraneans, Leo Percepied uses Mardou Fox for her exotic sexual attractiveness and rids of her after he shortly loses interest. Leo fetishizes Mardou’s dark skin and sees it as a prize, as interracial relationships were rare. “Darkness is at this point invested with fetishistic dimensions. Having made the association of Mardou with Africa as ‘original motherland’, the narrator projects these images directly upon her body, which is perceived as the site upon which his desire to reach the origin can be granted.” (Mikelli). Mikelli is proving that

Leo perceived Mardou as something new and exotic to play around with. That Mardou’s dark skin made her more appealing and desirable because neither Leo, nor any of his friends, had dated someone who had dark skin. Leo goes on to stereotype Mardou that all black women steal and perform rituals as his “last deepest final doubt [he] wanted about Mardou that she really