Privilege In On The Road

Privilege is a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people. It is an issue that has been occurring throughout the world since the dawn of time. Consequently, it remains a heavily debated topic and still continues to be a problem in today’s society. An example of past privilege is On the Road by Jack Kerouac. It is a Beat Generation historical fiction novel published September 5, 1957. It takes place in the U.S. right after WWII. On the Road demonstrates how privilege can promote the glorification of prejudice and poverty.
The group of people who have held the utmost privileged position throughout U.S history is that of the white male. Sal, the protagonist of the novel, uses his privilege as a white man to leave his ‘trivial’ issues, like his discontent with his level of poverty, behind him. Victoria A. Elmwood’s article, The White Nomad and the New Masculine Family in Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” discusses how Kerouac uses his novel to

Throughout the story, Sal glorifies those who are of lower social status than he is. This causes the novel to show youths how it is ‘noble’ to live a prejudiced life. This is extremely harmful and can promote racism and classism among the public. On the Road could also teach young women unhealthy beliefs on how they are seemingly of lesser value than the men of the book. It shows these girls that men are only interested for their personal pleasure and that they will not find true love, which is a lie. All readers should be of a high enough age and level of education to understand that these are faulty beliefs before reading the novel. This privilege still exists today and readers should be capable of understanding this and use On the Road as an example of how to educate those who fail to realize that it isn’t noble to be stuck in these