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Tramping: alternatives to traditional American rites of passage

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

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_13103
ContributorsSaturno, Anthony Vincent (author), Brown, Susan Love (Thesis advisor), Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters (Degree grantor), Department of Anthropology
PublisherFlorida Atlantic University
Source SetsFlorida Atlantic University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text
Format160 p., Online Resource
RightsAll rights reserved by the source institution, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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