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I would say he offered his heart to the United States and the United States rejected his heart. And he realized what suffering the United States was in for. And saw the tragedy of America as Whitman had seen the tragedy of the United States. "When the singer of the nation finds that the nation has sickened. What happens to the singer of the nation?" This is Gregory Corso's question.

And America by his day was sick. Militarily sick. Military industrial complex had taken over. Hard heartedness had taken over. Everything that as a Canuck-peasant Kerouac hated had taken over. The mechanization; the impersonality; the homogenization; the money-grabbing; the disrespect for person--that had all taken over. And vast wars. And the attack on the provincial in the wars.

So I would say America broke his heart.

—Allen Ginsberg from the documentary film "Jack Kerouac's Road - A Franco-American Oddysey."

http://www.nfb.ca/film/jack_kerouacs_road_francoamerican_odyssey