Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Brown, Susan Love

Abstract

In America today, adolescent boys do not have a structured, ritualized or guided passage From boyhood into manhood. Many young men feel unsure of their manhood even at an age that signifies the transition. This causes young males to need a self--‐created rite of passage. Tramping, the act of travelling by train, hitchhiking or foot, is one way in which young males can independently achieve manhood. This is a literary account of the lives of Jack Kerouac, Chris McCandless, and Zebu Recchia. Their personal stories allow a detailed view of the advantages and disadvantages found in a self--‐created rite of passage. While two of the accounts are successful, in Chris McCandless’s case the rite ends in a transition to death.Tramping as a rite of passage to adulthood seems effective but the danger in self--‐ creation appears to be the lack of guidance that comes in unstructured rites of passage.

Extent

160 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA0004057

Format

pdf

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