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Chapter 31
Themes
and Colors
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 has a drink in a rundown tavern and hitchhikes up to the Marblemount Ranger Station. When he arrives, the assistant ranger, Wally, complains that the last man who drove him was speeding. Ray realizes that he won’t have the freedom of a bhikku while working this job. He learns the ropes at Fire School and meets Burnie Byers, a 65-year-old lumberjack who remembers Japhy as a kind of brilliant prodigy. Ray spends his free time hiking or drinking by the Skagit River, while everyone else parties at carnivals. The river flows fast down from the cloud-covered mountaintops; Ray watches birds fish in it and logs float down it. The trees and leaves seem content, as though they’re right where they’re supposed to be, in perfect harmony with the eternal whole of the ecosystem and universe.
For the first time in the book, Ray gives up countercultural wandering to do ordinary paid work. His mental adjustment here shows how conventional jobs forces people to suppress their authentic selves and instead fit into someone else’s mold. Nevertheless, that is a relatively insignificant part of the fire lookout job, which is like the culmination of everything Japhy has taught Ray: it requires him to spend a long period of time totally alone in nature. During the training, when Ray continues his meditation, he immediately reaches a state of serenity, which shows that his understanding of the universe is improving over time.
Active
Themes
When it’s time to head up the mountain, Ray buys groceries and drives up the Skagit River with a muleskinner named Happy. They pass two dams and reach Diablo Lake, where prospectors arrived in the 1890s to search for gold. An enormous fire devastated the area in 1919, largely destroying the trail and leaving Desolation Peak full of snags (dead or burnt-out trees). Happy remembers sending an overly naïve youngster up to Desolation one year and warns Ray that everyone who works there eventually goes crazy from isolation. While Happy drives the mules up what’s left of the trail, Ray takes a boat up the river to the Ross Dam, where they spend the night sleeping on floats in the river and marveling at the enormous full moon.
The burnt-out trail and Happy’s comment about loneliness serve as warnings: the lookout job is not as easy as it seems. In fact, both the psychological toll of being alone and the difficulties of surviving in a harsh environment present challenges for people who take the job. Of course, these are the precise challenges that Ray is seeking out—his ability to cope with them will show how resilient he has become through his Buddhist training and his relationship with Japhy.
Active
Themes
In the morning, it’s finally time for Ray to go to Desolation Peak,—but it's rainy, and Happy says that he hopes Ray brought some brandy to cope with the weather. In fact, it’s still snowing on Desolation Peak, and Ray promises Happy that they’ll share a bottle of scotch after the summer’s over. Ray realizes that Happy and Japhy remember each other fondly, and all of a sudden, he starts to seriously miss Japhy.
Active
Themes
Ray, Happy, and Wally travel upriver for a couple hours, then take the trail on horseback with their mules. It’s wet and slippery, but they make steady progress. When they reach a section of trail that’s blocked off by a fallen tree, Happy builds a new shortcut around it. As they continue climbing, the shrubs give way to a meadow and then then snow-covered gray rocks. The snow and hail are intolerable by the time they reach the top, where the tiny wooden fire lookout cabin is located. Ray realizes that it’s drearier than he expected, and he starts questioning his decision to come.
Active
Themes
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Inside the fire lookout cabin, everything is old and filthy. Wally tells Ray to start cleaning immediately, while Happy makes coffee. Ray points out that it’s too foggy to see anything—never mind a fire—but Happy explains that the fog should clear in a few days. Ray wonders whether it might stay forever, like on Han Shan’s eternally foggy Cold Mountain. After having coffee, doing more chores, and eating spam and eggs for dinner, the three men go to sleep.
Active
Themes
Happy and Wally leave in the morning, leaving Ray alone and terrified. He spends the whole foggy day cleaning, and in the evening he meditates outside. That night, Ray wakes up terrified: there’s “a huge black monster” right outside his window. Actually, it’s just Mount Hozomeen in the distance—Ray can see it now because the fog has cleared. The mountain is spectacular: it looks just like the drawing Japhy made in California.
Active
Themes
