" (Vopat, 390) she says when describing Sal’s America. The very fact that a critic sees America as such a depressing world after Sal’s description of his adventures upon it show that his original thoughts of optimism are sorely erroneous in this novel.The best place to search for optimism in this novel can be seen in the fact that Sal seems to eventually break away from his blind hopefulness at the end of the story. Sal no longer feels the intense drive to discover and become disappointed. According to Hunt, he has already experienced "the action of breaking out of the established routine or order in search of kicks and the knowledge of time" and it has only left him with "experiences that end in vision, exhaustion, and a return to the established order" (Hunt, 23). Sal’s first attempt to lose the foolish optimism of situations, when he suggests that the Mexico trip is "doomed," continues through the final chapter of the book. Upon meeting a woman with "innocent and pure eyes" named Laura, whom he sincerely loves, Sal is making his first move from optimistic fool to a more realistic adult. Sal realizes the silliness of Dean’s extremely early arrival in New York to meet Laura when he notes that "suddenly Dean arrived anyway, five and a half weeks in advance, and nobody had any money" (Kerouac, 290). No longer is Sal excited to go out, get drunk, and talk to Dean for hours on end about nothing and everything. He has moved beyond these impractical actions and belief in unrealistic dreams. Finally, something that a reader of the novel as "the saddest story I’ve ever read" can look at and see as a positive thing. Sal will no longer follow this dismal path, and we can be encouraged by this.The question as to why there is such strong optimism in the novel despite the constant put-downs remains. The incessant search for the pearl, or IT, is an obvious answer to the question of why. Dean’s exclamat...
