Christopher Klein's The First Great American Road Trip

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How does Dr. Jackson's actions help influence and portray the author's attitude towards him? In Christopher Klein's text, "The First Great American Road Trip," it talks about how Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson traveled from Vermont to New York City in the early days of automobile travel. The passage shows how Dr. Jackson is competitive and will prove people wrong, how he never gave up when bad things would happen on his trip, and that he still won in the end. First, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson and Sewall Crocker were at a bar debate. A man challenged Dr. Jackson to survive a trip across America. But at first, Dr. Jackson wasn't up for it until someone bet him $50 to make it from one state to another while driving a horseless carriage. Stating, "Then in a scene straight out of Jules Verne's 'Around the World in 80 Days,' someone bet …show more content…

Jackson felt competitive and had more motivation to travel across America. Next, because Jackson chose to travel, he ran into problems throughout the trip. Secondly, on the way to New York City in their car they called Vermont, Dr. Jackson and Crocker had many malfunctions. Starting with a broken clutch, making the wrong turns, and stud bolts breaking, those are only some of the things that messed up. They also had a leak in the gas tank. Since the stud bolts on their car's connecting rod broke, it made them lose days of their trip. The author wrote, "The stud bolts on the car's other connecting rod broke this time, and again they lost five days waiting for parts," (Klein). When the passage mentions the words this time and again, it shows that this wasn't the only thing that happened to them, and it wasn't the first time either. In addition, this leads to how Dr. Jackson still made it in the end. Lastly, despite all of the malfunctions and delays that Jackson and Crocker faced with the car, they still won in the end. Making it to New York City by the sixty third day, they earned

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