Abstract
Although it has most often been viewed as a work of philosophy, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) is, more accurately, a travel narrative that takes readers on a journey by motorcycle across the northern plains of the USA. The book earned enormous success in the marketplace and remains a compelling exploration of the divisiveness that permeated American culture in the 1960s and early 1970s. Pirsig, in recounting his journey, offers a vision of wholeness evidenced by the narrator's evolving awareness of the intertwined relationships between seemingly intractable cultural conflict and personal pursuits of happiness. This essay explores how Pirsig responds to the social challenges of his day and his own demons by tapping into the popular history of the motorcycle, a paradoxical machine that has served as both a symbol of subversion and an ideal machine for experiencing the mythical dreams of the American open road.
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