Big Sur Literary Elements

Fictional biography

The action takes place over the duration of ten days in Bixby Canyon.

The narrator in the story is Jack Duluoz who recalls the events from the perspective of a first-person subjective point of view.

The tone and mood in the novel are tense.

The protagonist is Jack Duluoz, and the antagonist is described as being the main character's inability to remain sober and to live a healthy and productive life.

The major conflict is an internal one and is between chaos and peace.

The story reaches its climax when Jack Duluoz returns to San Francisco and finds out that his cat died while he was in the middle of the wilderness.

The storm Jack Duluoz experienced during his last day in the canyon is used here to foreshadow the problems the narrator will have to face due to his excessive drinking.

When Jack Duluoz reaches the canyon, he is so moved by the beauty of nature that he claims he will never drink anything in his life. This is an understatement because as soon as Jack Duluoz returns back to the city, he goes back to his old ways.

The main allusion we find here is the idea that people can never truly change and modify their behavior.

No important imagery which has not been analyzed can be found here.

The main paradoxical idea we find is that even though all the characters are unhappy, they do nothing to change their lives for the better.

A parallel is drawn between Jack Duluoz and his friend, Lorenzo Monsanto. The parallel is used here to transmit the idea that close contact with modern technology will always cause pain and suffering.

The cabin is used here as a general term through which the narrator makes reference to the idea of peace brought forth by being in close contact with nature.

We have a personification in the line "the smoke pushed him deeper and deeper into a comfortable numbness".