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Which real people inspired Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty in On the Road?
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Jack Kerouac
American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, c. 1965.
In the novel On the Road, the characters are largely based on real people from the life of author Jack Kerouac:
- Sal Paradise: This protagonist is based on Jack Kerouac himself.1
- Dean Moriarty: This character is based on the fellow Beat poet and adventurer Neal Cassady.12
While readers often conflated Kerouac with his narrator, Sal Paradise, the novel serves as a loosely autobiographical account of the travels and experiences Kerouac shared with Cassady.132