Dharma Bums- 94-120

The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
Pg. 119-120

"...But then more fog and smog again and horrible damp white cloud of dawn and my bag too hot to sleep in and outside too raw to stand, nothing but horror all night long, except at dawm a little bird blessed me."

Ray, in this quote, is actually sensing the reality compared to his assumptions on a pleasent dream-like journey. As he sleeps in the dense smog of LA, he finds that this journey isn't as smooth and peaceful as he intended it to be. In this particular scene, the concepts of reality and dreams take shape. Ray's dream of peace and tranquility is not the reality of the world. He finds that the world is not peaceful as he intended for the world to be, but that places in the world are rough and a hard habitat to live in. Also, not all things contain that peacefullness that he believes, but that some things can contain horridness. It's not all smoot and tranquil a journey as Ray expects.

The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
Pg. 104

"But there was a widom in it all, as you'll see if you take a walk some night on a suburban street and pass house after house on both sides of the street each with the lamplight of the living room, shining golden, and inside the little blue square of the television, each living family riveeting its attention on probably one show; nobody talking, silence in the yards; dogs barking at you because you pass on human feet instead of on wheels. You'll see what I mean when it begins to appear like everybody in the world is soon going to be thinking the same way and the Zen lunatics have long joined dust, laughter on their dust lips."

In this quote, Ray is describing the mundane lifestyle of citizens inhabiting the urban lives of society. He describes the monotonous lifestyle of regular everyday citizens and comparing them towards the Zen dharma bums. He explains their sort of need for materialism to vill their void. However, throughout the story Japhy and Ray find that comparisons are odious, yet they can't help but compare their lifestyle to the lifestyle of society. They believe that their lives are the better of the two, yet how would they be able to judge that comparison? Maybe a citizen of society may think that their monotonous lifestly is the best suitable option of the two. So by comparing the society to their dharma bum lifestyle they are contradicting their own beliefs.