Countercultural Escapism in the (Post)Modern Age: On the Road and Trainspotting

Abstract

This research investigates countercultural escapism in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, and connects it to the construction of Otherness and the emergence of postmodernism. The texts are approached through comparative thematic close-reading. This research argues that analysis of the different escapes can be used to gain understanding of the motivations that drive both countercultural movements, and that postmodern developments can be traced out through investigation of the construction of Otherness. Finally, the fluctuation inherent in both escapes and the endings of both novels indicate that On the Road and Trainspotting are countercultural Bildungsromans.