The Sea is My Brother

Table of Contents

 

 

 

Introduction

The first major work by Jack Kerouac,
The Sea Is My Brother
was written in the spring of 1943 and until now has never been published in its entirety. The novel offers the reader a glimpse of a Jack who is at odds with his own youthful idealism and the harsh realities of a nation at war. His character studies reveal much of what we expect from Jack's observational style providing many glimpses into his early writing experiments while presenting us with an introspective view of Jack as a young man played out in the two main characters. Everhart who is encouraged by his new friend, the reckless and high-spirited Martin, to hitchhike to Boston and sign up as a Merchant Marine, finds himself taking risks that he never would have considered before meeting Martin. This contradiction, embodied in the two main characters, Bill Everhart and Wesley Martin, is exemplified in their first meeting: “Everhart studied the stranger; once, when Wesley glanced at Everhart and found him ogling from
behind the fantastic spectacles, their eyes locked in combat, Wesley's cool and non-committal, Everhart's a searching challenge, the look of the brazen skeptic.”

Jack began several stories based on his adventures at sea with different titles and characters. He did make a few starts on the first chapter of this story as well which contains some enlightening notes by Jack concerning the development of the novel's characters around what he felt was his own dual personality.

The majority of Everhart's character is derived from Jack's own experiences. Everhart's intellectual pursuits, for example, can be achieved with very little risk, for he lives with his father, brother, and sister much like Jack. Everhart's desire to experience something more real and stimulating, echoes Jack's recent rebellious voyage on the
Dorchester
and his dropping out of Columbia. Therefore Everhart's decision to take a leap-of-faith symbolizes in many ways Jack's desire to turn away momentarily from his intellectual self and use his perceptive nature to inspire his work. Jack noted this need for real experiences in his journal: “My mother is very worried over my having joined the Merchant Marine,
but I need money for college, I need adventure, of a sort (the real adventure of rotting wharves and seagulls, winey waters and ships, ports, cities, and faces & voices); and I want to study more of the earth, not out of books, but from direct experience” (July 20, 1942).

The character Martin on the other hand is free of any intellectual burdens; this is Jack's “worldly side,” is free to come and go with no strings attached. A wanderer of the world, Martin goes from port to port taking in the experiences without fear or commitment. In a letter to Jack's friend Sebastian Sampas in November 1942, he tries to convince him to ship out with him in the Merchant Marines: “But I believe that I want to go back to sea . . . for the money, for the leisure and study, for the heart-rending romance, and for the pith of the moment.” Jack's notes on another working copy of the novel reinforce his intention to include every aspect of his worldly experience: “Into this book, ‘The Sea Is My Brother', I shall weave all the passion and glory of living, its restlessness and peace, its fever and ennui, its mornings, noons and nights of desire, frustration, fear, triumph, and death. . . .”

In the same letter to Sebastian Jack laid out the internal soul-searching dilemma that
The Sea Is My Brother
is attempting to resolve:

The references about wasting money at Columbia parallel Everhart's internal questioning “What was he doing with his life?” and become his impetus for shipping out with Martin. Amongst Jack and his friends from Lowell there was much correspondence during this time. They wrote of comrades and brotherhood, topics which are an integral part of this novel and help to resolve Jack's battle with his changing political views. When he was younger his infatuation with the idealism expressed in the letters to his friends and the ongoing dialogs in the media regarding the various political movements give way to his more critical nature which began to develop after his induction into the Navy. He wrote to Sebastian on March 25,1943 from
the Navy barracks: “Though I am skeptical about the administration of the Progressive movement, I shall withhold all judgments until I come in direct contact with these people—other Communists, Russians, politicians, etc., leftists artists, leaders, workers, and so forth.”

The Sea Is My Brother
is a seminal work marking Jack's transition as a writer and represents the earliest evidence of the development of his style. He tells Sebastian in a letter, dated March 15, 1943; “I am writing 14 hours a day, 7 days a week . . . I know you'll like it, Sam; it has compassion, it has a certain something that will appeal to you (brotherhood, perhaps).”

Shortly after he wrote
The Sea Is My Brother,
Jack began
The Town and the City
, published in 1950, which launched his career as a writer. These two novels, both based on his real-life experiences, are part of the writing method he started to develop in 1943 that he dubbed “Supreme Reality.”

Jack began this work not long after his first tour as a Merchant Marine on the
S.S. Dorchester
from the late summer—October of 1942 during which he kept a journal detailing the gritty daily routine of life at sea. The journal titled “Voyage to Greenland” is dated 1942 and subtitled “GROWING PAINS or A MONUMENT TO ADOLESCENCE”. Inspired by the trip, the journal is an example of
Jack's love for adventure, the character traits of his fellow shipmates which created spontaneous sketches of those experiences that were later woven into this novel.

Jack often revisited his journals adding notes and did so here with a poem dated April 17, 1949 several years after the
Sea Is My Brother
was written.

All life is but a skull-bone and
A rack of ribs through which
we keep passing food & fuel—
just so's we can burn so
furious beautiful.

The first entry dated Saturday July 18, 1942 describes his first night on deck the
Dorchester
, the meal he ate (five lamb chops), and this passage written early the next morning: “I sat in a deck chair, awhile after and bethought me about several things. How should I write this journal? Where is this ship bound for, and when? What is the destiny of this great grey tub? I signed on Friday, or yesterday, and do not begin work till Monday morning. . . . I could have gone home to say goodbye—but goodbyes are so difficult, so heart-rending. I haven't the courage, or perhaps the hardness, to withstand the tremendous pathos of this life. I love life's casual beauty—fear its awful strength.”

Early on in the “Voyage to Greenland” journal is evidence of his plans for the observations he was making: “Up to now, I've refrained from introducing any characters in this journal, for fear I should be mistaken due to a brief acquaintance with those in question, and should be forced to rescind previous opinions and judgments.” Jack continues that although it would create an “acceptable log,” that he felt it should “tell the story within the story,” and that since he shall “perhaps one day want to write a novel about the voyage,” and he would be able to find all the details on file: “a true writer never forgets character studies, and never will.” Later the same day he began these character studies.