In both Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49, characters act in deviant ways outside of social norms. This in turn leads to a deviant subcultural group that competes with institutionalized authorities for power. Deviance in both novels is usually defined as a certain type of behavior, such as a drunken professor stammering in a classroom full of students or a group of teenagers frolicking naked in a city park on a warm, sunny afternoon. However, deviance can also include both ideas and attributes (Sagarin, 1975). The primary understanding of deviance lies in the reactions of observers, something becomes deviant because an individual, group or society takes offense and reacts negatively (Cohen, 1966, Lofland, 1969). These negative reactions occur because viewers interpret what they see and hear as bad, crazy, strange, immoral, non-conforming, or wrong. Negative responses do more than define deviance; they serve as mechanisms of social control and power. In examining these novels from a sociological perspective, both Kerouac and Pynchon examine conflicts between traditional society and subcultural groups. The deviant behavior, thoughts, and attributes observed in the novels' characters provide a strong argument in favor of Austin Turk's conflict theory of deviance, which examines power and cultural conflict as the basis for deviant behavior. To begin with, Austin Turk's conflict theory of crime divides societies into two groups: those with power "the authorities" and those without power "the subjects". In Pynchon's novel The Crying Of Lot 49, this is accomplished by contrasting Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul, with those of low social economic class... middle class... Catholic background, and his resemblance to a hero Fitzgerald, with a tragic death and foul dust floating in the wake of his dreams (153). However, both novels express those subjects who live by values ​​beyond social norms as having some power to change social norms. By examining Turk's theory of conflict between authority and subjects, it becomes evident that the deviant behavior observed in the characters of both novels is an influential method of power to alter cultural and social norms. WORKS CITED Douglas, John. Thomas Pynchon: Allusive parables of power. New York: St. Martin, 1990 Gomme, Ian McDermid. The shadow line: deviance and crime in Canada. Toronto: HBJ 1993. Kerouac, Jack. On the road. New York: Penguin Books, 1955Pynchon, Thomas. The Cry of Lot 49. New York: Harper & Row, 1966