Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dharma Bums, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Enlightenment and Nature
Counterculture and Freedom
Friendship
Literature and Authenticity
Inclusion, Exclusion, and Community
Summary
Analysis
Ray gathers wood and starts a huge bonfire while Japhy makes bulgur wheat, chocolate pudding, and more tea. They eat with chopsticks under the endless stars and Ray realizes that, with the altitude and exercise, he doesn’t crave a drink at all. Afterward, Japhy washes the dishes and pulls out a star map, which shows him that it’s got to be 8:48 p.m. He tells Ray that he appreciates his feel for the language of the American working class, and Ray tells him about hitchhiking with a Cherokee trucker in Texas. Reading the star map, Japhy looks like a Chinese Zen Buddhist master. He and Ray eat chocolate pudding and then part ways for to meditate for a little while.
As Japhy predicted before their hike, Ray doesn’t feel the need to drink in the mountains. This means that being in nature has cured whatever need or anxiety drove him to drink in the city. In other words, nature seems to have purified Ray’s mind and saved him from self-destructive impulses. This is another reason why spending as much time as possible in nature would help him improve his self-awareness and better internalize the truths he’s learned through studying Buddhist doctrines. Ray and Japhy’s preference for working-class people and aesthetic styles is also part of their desire to get closer to nature and what they consider to be authenticity.
Themes
Ray writes that he admires Japhy’s charitability—when they reunite, Japhy gives him a string of wooden prayer beads, and Japhy makes sure that Ray sleeps closer to the fire at night. (This starts a long tradition of gift-giving in their friendship.) After Japhy falls asleep, Ray gazes at the stars, marveling at Japhy’s benevolent spirit and wisdom beyond his years. Thinking about his bohemian past, Ray resolves to live “the pure way,” traveling around North America with nothing but a rucksack.
Japhy’s charitability is what allows Ray to learn so much from their friendship. Indeed, the string of prayer beads he gifts Ray represents the way their friendship is based on a shared commitment to self-improvement through Buddhism—especially their desire to become more self-aware and charitable. When Ray decides that he will live “the pure way,” he’s choosing to follow in Japhy’s footsteps, because he thinks that this is the best way to live a life in line with his Buddhist values.
Themes
In the morning, it’s freezing cold, but Ray feels joyous and playful; he hears Henry Morley yodel from down below. Japhy invites Ray to a morning cup of tea, which he takes after getting dressed and drinking some water from the stream. Henry reaches them a couple hours later and immediately starts telling one of his nonsensical stories. The group is ready to really start climbing Mount Matterhorn.
Ray’s sense of joy in the morning clearly comes from being around Japhy and in nature. So, when Henry finally catches up to Ray and Japhy, Ray has already completely transformed his thinking—but Henry is still exactly the same as he was before. Having passed through his first transformative experience in the wilderness, Ray is ready to actually finish the climb and see what else he learns about Buddhism along the way.
Themes
