Dean Moriarty

Dean Moriarty is one of the protagonists in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. Dean Moriarty is based upon the Beat generation writer Neal Cassady.^[1]

Character overview

Dean is born in Salt Lake City, Utah and grows up in Colorado. His father is an alcoholic hobo who abandons the family when Dean is a child; Dean searches for his father for many years, to no avail.

Throughout the novel, Dean races from journey to journey and pulls other people along, including the novel's protagonist, Sal Paradise. Dean's various fixations include drugs, women, intellectualism and finally, his father and family life. He is a womanizer who lives for "kicks" with both men and women — he frequently has group sex with male and female partners, including friend Carlo Marx (analogous to Allen Ginsberg). His main romantic connections in the book are Camille, his wife and mother of his two children, and Mary Lou, a sexually voracious 16-year-old girl who accompanies him and Sal on their cross-country journey. Eventually, Camille divorces him. Sal last sees him standing on a corner in New York City, alone but free, and shares a brief but meaningful exchange with him before moving on.

In other media

In the film adaptation of the book, Dean is played by Garrett Hedlund.

Dean Moriaty is also a character in the Disney TV show Wizards Of Waverly Place

References

External links

• Comparing Dean Moriarty to Neal Cassady
• Lyrics to the Aztec Two-Step song "The Persecution & Restoration of Dean Moriarty (On the Road)"