Abstract This paper examines how in novels "On the Road" and "Saint Maybe", by Jack Kerouac and Anne Tyler, the authors stress upon life as a set of experiences and how these build a person. It shows how Jack Kerouac's characters go flying off randomly along the twisted contours of their lives in his autobiographical epic "On the Road". In contrast, it also looks at how Anne Tyler in her novel, "Saint Maybe" shows "ordinary" people and their ordinary lives. She displays the fact that people in this world are only human and are hence bound to make mistakes, yet they struggle to survive with the attempt to work out the problems they face in relationships and communication.
From the Paper "The journey of the seventeen-year-old protagonist, Ian Bedloe, begins when he doesn't imagine the consequences of his actions. He suspects there is more to Lucy's past and to the problems of her present, than either Danny or the rest of the family has acknowledged. And one night, when Ian's plans for a romantic evening with his girlfriend-indeed, it is the night he plans to lose his virginity-are disrupted by having to baby-sit Lucy's children longer than he was supposed to, Ian becomes enraged. And so, on the way home, Ian tells his brother what he suspects about Lucy, and also mentions that the daughter, for whom Danny abandoned his studies to marry Lucy, is not his child. In disbelief and horror, Danny commits suicide by driving his car into a wall."
