Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums (1958) is a lyrical exploration of the Beat Generation's search for spiritual transcendence amid postwar materialism. This paper applies ecocriticism, drawing on Lawrence Buell's concept of the 'environmental imagination,' to analyze how Kerouac portrays nature'notably the mountains and Desolation Peak'as an active spiritual presence rather than a mere backdrop. Through Ray Smith's reflections, such as 'I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all... the woods and the peace and the quiet' (56), the novel presents nature as a Zen-inspired space of mindfulness and solitude. Ultimately, The Dharma Bums emerges as a key text in American eco-spiritual literature, celebrating nature as a site of revelation while revealing tensions in the Beat movement's fusion of Zen and wilderness.
Ph.D. Scholar, Amity School of Languages, Amity University, Chhattisgarh
