The Words I Put in Your Mouth: The Sexual Politics of Rambling, Direct and Indirect Style in Kerouac's Tristessa

Abstract

This article explores how Kerouac's instrumental use of rambling, direct and indirect styles in Tristessa (1960) impacts its sexual politics. After having deciphered the attributes of the narrative voice that integrates Kerouac's aesthetics of spontaneous prose, we will turn to the character of Tristessa and analyze the features of her speech. As a discrepancy appears between the male-subject (Duluoz) and the female-object (Tristessa), we will examine the effects that such stylistic choices entail in Kerouac's narrative project, especially at the level of its economy of desire and its translation in terms of sexual politics in the novella.