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 wakes up in the afternoon and ponders Japhy’s curious fear of entering the fancy restaurant. Later that evening, Princess pays Ray a visit, and they have wild Bodhisattvic sex. Alvah interrupts them when he gets home, so they go take a bath together, and then Princess goes home.
Back in Berkeley, Ray returns to his old routine. But now, he’s armed with the wisdom he gained on the hike with Japhy. Having experienced the wilderness, he can see his life in society in a new light—but this doesn’t prevent him from enjoying material things and physical pleasures.
Themes
Then, Japhy and Warren Coughlin show up to party with Ray and Alvah. They get wildly drunk and start wandering around town, carrying some enormous flowers and yelling out verses of poetry on their way to visit a local English professor Warren knows. Back at Alvah’s cottage, Ray asks Japhy to help him spend some long-awaited fellowship money on hiking gear and then drop him out in the desert somewhere the next day. Naturally, Japhy agrees—but first, the men have more wine and tell stories.
Although the men are certainly indulging in worldly pleasures when they get drunk at their party, which Buddhism might ordinarily reject, they do so for the sake of what they see as a higher cause: literature and the knowledge it expresses. Ray’s request to Japhy indicates that he’s planning to start traveling to spend time in nature, not just to meet new people and visit his friends. In other words, Japhy has convinced him that the wilderness is the best place to find enlightenment, so he’s finally going to take the leap and live as a Dharma Bum.
Themes
Japhy lectures the other men about how some Buddhists think that reality is only in the mind—but he thinks that people need to reconnect with the natural world, like frontiersmen who seek out “the realness of existence.” The others agree and create a poem based on his words. Japhy then proclaims that true bards wander the world and speak the truth because they refuse to participate in the bloated, materialistic “system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume.” He imagines a mass movement of “Dharma Bums” rejecting this lifestyle and living like Bodhisattvas, wandering around North America. Along the way, the Dharma Bums would stop at a network of zendos (meditation halls) where they could meditate; drink tea; live in shacks; and rule their wives and families according to their own law, like the Puritans did.
In this section, Japhy clearly presents his countercultural worldview: he explains how his Buddhist beliefs, his critique of American capitalism, and his lifestyle choices all fit together coherently. Namely, he considers American capitalism vile because it distances people from the truths about the universe that poetry, art, and nature can show them. This is why he and his friends value literature: it’s not an intellectual or artistic game but rather a way to capture and spread the truth. By spreading this truth and showing that it’s possible to live a morally coherent, countercultural lifestyle, Japhy offers a competing vision of human society. This is why he proposes starting a revolution: if it’s possible to organize a society around capitalism’s “system of work, produce, [and] consume,” then it’s certainly also possible to build a society around religious values. His friend group proves that this is true. However, Japhy’s reference to Puritanism (a form of Protestantism that had strict rules of how to behave and worship) and comments about women might give some readers pause. This comparison suggests that his vision might really only liberate men, while forcing women to stay in the same domestic roles that most already occupied in the 1950s (when the story takes place).
Themes
Japhy recites a poem about wandering to Japan in search of the Zen master Hakuyu, who supposedly lives in a cave in the mountains and has special teachings about how to sleep, eat, and think well. Hakuyu is at least 300 years old, but Japhy thinks that he can track him down. He also wants to go hike Mount Tamalpais and “purify the atmosphere” with the Sūtras. Alvah has mixed feelings about this, and Japhy half-jokingly berates him, telling him to live his life in a hut and find a nice, anti-materialistic Buddhist girl to settle down with. Next, Japhy reads another stanza from Han Shan’s “Cold Mountain”—again, Han Shan praises living in nature on the mountaintop, which he says is better than having a physical house.
Japhy’s poetry demonstrates how sincerely he believes in his vision and values. Indeed, like Han Shan’s poetry, the main purpose of Japhy’s writing is to communicate this vision, which is based around his search for hidden wisdom in nature—specifically the mountains. In this case, the Zen master Hakuyu represents that wisdom. Meanwhile, Han Shan attests to how a life of solitary meditation is the surest way to achieve true inner peace.
Themes
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Japhy and Ray play the guitar and sing, and all the men start free-associating nonsensically, yelling about “blueberry pies” and “blueberry spies,” how “the rhododendron tree is only half enlightened,” and so on. As they drink more and more, they’re increasingly impressed by their own creativity. Eventually, Ray and Warren nearly knock down Alvah’s cottage by wrestling around and kicking the walls in, and Henry Morley randomly shows up with some large containers of yogurt.
Even though the men’s free association perhaps seems as meaningless as Henry Morley’s bizarre monologues, it shows how their minds are all working on the same wavelength. They share the same energy because they essentially view the world in the same way, which allows them to flourish together creatively. If Japhy imagines building a new society populated by Buddhist artists, his friend group is a clear start to this, and a model for the future.
Themes
Before falling asleep, Ray reflects on his newfound buddies, the “Zen Lunatics,” and ponders the absurdity of suburban American life: everybody spends all day glued to the television instead of spending time with their friends and family, and they all drive everywhere instead of walking. Everyone but the Zen Lunatics seems to live this way now. Remembering a song by the country singer Montana Slim, Ray decides that it’s all a pointless trick.
Even though the “Zen Lunatics” live a decidedly absurd lifestyle, Ray points out that it’s actually much more grounded and purposeful than the way most supposedly normal Americans live. He sees technology—like televisions and cars—as distancing people from their natural way of life, which is what really brings them happiness and inner peace. In fact, he seems to believe that all of North America’s mainstream values—economic consumption, stable work, accumulating wealth, and so on—make people miserable. His sense of profound joy at pursuing the opposite of these values reinforces this view that they’re pointless.
Themes
