Dharma Bums Chpater 11

In class we were asked to take 30 minutes of our time to rewrite a portion of Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums in the perspective of a different character. Throughout this novel I have found that Japhy s an extremely interesting and dynamic character so I chose to rewrite the beginning of chapter 11 in his perspective. The chapter describes how Morley, Ray and Japhy begin to climb a daunting valley. While Ray feels his enthusiasm begin to fade into fear, Japhy being an experienced climber is way ahead and most likely feeling confident in his ability to conquer this mountain.After a while of climbing the group reaches a lake in which Ray suddenly expresses his feelings of being capable enough to climb the remainder of the mountain, however Japhy cuts Ray off in reminding him that to climb the rest of the mountain means that he has to climb one thousand feet more. Although this is going to be a difficult task Japhy decides to climb to the top as quickly as possible, and the naive Ray decides to follow. In just a short amount of time Ray feels as though he has made a mistake in deciding to follow Japhy due to the fact that he is tired and afraid of the height he has reached. Finally after a miserable climb Ray finds a edge to rest on as Japhy continues to climb to Matterhorn's peak. As Ray rests he believes that Morey is the most intelligent of them all for staying down by the lake.

When I was rewriting this scene from Japhy's point of view I imagined that he would spend a lot less time complaining about the difficulty of the climb and describe the beauty of the mountain and other images he sees along the way. I believe this because Japhy is an experienced climber and clearly had no problem at all making it to Matterhorn's peak. Also I feel like Japhy is a person with less emotion, he is more of a straight forward character and is less relate-able to the audience, at least in a college class.

One of my favorite lines as told from Ray is, "suddenly everything was just like jazz...I looked up and saw Japhy running down the mountain in huge twenty-foot leaps, running, leaping, landing with a great drive of his booted heels...and in that flash I realized it's impossible to fall off mountains you fool and with a yodel of my own I suddenly got up and began running down the mountain...." I like this line because it shows Ray's innocence and young-spirit. He has ultimately found his rhythm again and shows a great amount of enthusiasm.