Original artwork, not a still
I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life but that great consciousness of life.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Kerouac wonders if a dead man can go on giving something more than memory: life itself, and the sharpened awareness of being alive. It is the Beat writer at his most tender, far from the road and the jazz, and is often read at funerals and in tributes. It is a hope, not a claim, which is why it moves people.
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Jack Kerouac wrote this in a private journal entry dated November 1951, not in a published book, speech or letter. Wikiquote cites it to the Kerouac ROMnibus CD-ROM edition of his journals. It comes a few months after he finished the first draft of On the Road in April 1951, during the years when he was filling notebooks while trying to get the book published. The journals of that period were later collected in Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac (1947-1954). The sentence is a hope, written to himself, about what a person leaves behind in others after death.
Sources (3)
- Wikiquote: Jack Kerouacentry citing Journal entry (November 1951), Kerouac ROMnibusReference checked
- Wikipedia: Jack KerouacLife section on 1951Reference checked
- Wikipedia: Jack Kerouac bibliographyjournal volumesReference checked
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