What is the setting of The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac?

The novel contains three primary sections, each of which has a different setting. The novel's opening sequences take place in and around Berkeley, California, and focus on the activities of a group of beat movement poets and writers. The setting is historically significant and is therefore appropriate to the novel. However, the setting also provides an interesting place and time where the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures actually happened. For example, after a successful poetry reading, the characters walk to Chinatown for food, and Japhy is employed in the translation of Asian poetry. The setting's historical significance gives the opening scenes of novel an authentic and gritty tone.

The second phase of the novel takes place in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The area is described in considerable detail, which is appropriate since the locale is far less well known than Berkeley. The area is wooded and rural, and it has a small-town America feel. Most residents there have typical protestant values and do not share Ray's desire for enlightenment. Nevertheless, the solitude of the rural woods allows Ray ample time to meditate, and after several weeks, he feels enlightened and awakened. He simultaneously irritates his family, which is critical of his do-nothing attitude. It is ironic that to find enlightenment Ray travels from the hip environs of Berkeley to the conventional rural environs of North Carolina.

The final phase of the novel takes place atop Desolation Peak, a craggy isolated mountaintop at 6,600-foot elevation in the Cascade Mountain range near the Canadian border. Here, Ray works as a fire lookout and is, quite literally, entirely alone for two months, his only contact with others by way of a wireless radio set that he uses only infrequently. Desolation Peak is symbolic of emptiness, which is part of enlightenment. Ray is isolated from the world and therefore is entirely free of desire and suffering. He finds the immense area of solitude a happy and fulfilling place.

The other setting worthy of note in this novel is the road. The narrator spends several chapters hitchhiking, jumping rails, riding busses and otherwise traveling across the United States, crossing thousands of miles throughout the book. The distances traveled are not compressed in single sentences or ignored. Instead, these traveling times provide enlightenment and contact with the title characters, dharma bums.