Travels With Charley By John Steinbeck: An Analysis

260 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: How childhood affects adulthood

One of the assertions Steinbeck makes about American culture and society in Travels with Charley is that everyone in America wants to leave where they are from to go anywhere but where they are. An example of this in the book is on page twelve, when a young boy kept going to the Rocinante and just examining it, then one day he tried to convince Steinbeck to take him with him by telling him he’d do dishes and other various choirs. Another example of how everyone wants to leave where they are from and go somewhere else is when Steinbeck said, “ Under the big oak trees of my place at Sag Harbor sat Rocinante, handsome and self contained, and neighbors came to visit, some neighbors we didn’t even know we had. I saw in their eyes something I was

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Steinbeck's Standard In The Grapes Of Wrath And The Road

    1473 Words  | 3 Pages

    Steinbeck meets his standard by celebrating the migrant workers’ drive and sense of community in the face of the Great Depression. The Joad family and many others, are dedicated to conquering all odds: “[t]hus they changed their social life–changed as in the whole universe only man can change” (Steinbeck 196). There are no other options available for these tenant families than to take the trek to California in hopes of finding work. The fears they once had about droughts and floods now lingered with

    Read More

  • Central Ideas in "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    Generally, Steinbeck wanted to discover more American culture, so while traveling he stopped to talk to some local folks around the places he visited. Steinbeck enjoyed learning about people by eating breakfast in roadside restaurants while listening to morning radio programs. While on the U.S. Highways 5, 2, and 1 to the ...

    Read More

  • Free Grapes of Wrath Essays: Steinbeck's Style

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    Analysis of Style of The Grapes Of Wrath     John Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath is a moving novel, full of richly metaphorical language.  His writing style often evokes deep emotions, as it does in the passage reprinted below, by creating a clear picture in your mind of what he’s trying to say.  In this selection, he enforces a strong image in the reader’s mind: you cannot escape your past, which will be with you no matter where you go or what you do.&n & nbsp; & nbsp; But you can’t start.  Only a baby can start.  You and me—why, we’re all that’s been.  That anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that’s us.  This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the drought years are us.  We can’t start again.  The bitterness we sold to the junk man—he got it all right, but we hurts, marching with our bitterness.  And some day—the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way.  And they’ll all walk together and there’ll be a dead terror from it.    (ch. 9, p. 11. & nbsp; An important point that Steinbeck tries to deliver is the significance of memory.  “The bitterness we sold to the junk man—he got it all right, but we have it still. ”  Despite having rid themselves of the physical presence of reminders of past woes, the mental image and pain still remain.  Just because there isn’t anything around to provide evidence of something happening doesn’t mean that it will go away.  “You and me—why, we’re all that’ and his thoughts, not what he surrounds himself with in the external world. Steinbeck’s word choice has a very significant impact on the effectiveness of his writing.  By using words and phrases like “junk man,” “dead terror,” and the repetition of the words “bitterness” and “dead,” he drives his point home in a very matter-of-fact sort of way.  He doesn’t beat around the bush or dodge the issue at all, he just spits it out, plain and clear—“.that’s us until we’re dead. ”&n not overcomplicating his writing, the same meaning is conveyed in fewer words, and is therefore more potent.  Further adding strength to his narrative is its similarity to the writing structure of the Bible.  His sentences are generally short and often start with the word “And,” just as the books of the Bible do.  This makes his tone sound very prophetic, powerful, and forceful.  He speaks of “armies of bitterness” that will “walk together and there’ll be a dead terror from it”—forecasting terrible events in the future as if he knew they were going to happen.&nbs and the real thing.

    Read More

  • Steinbeck's Social Commentary in The Grapes of Wrath

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a realistic novel that mimics life and offers social commentary too. It offers many windows on real life in midwest America in the 1930s. But it also offers a powerful social commentary, directly in the intercalary chapters and indirectly in the places and people it portrays. Typical of very many, the Joads are driven off the land by far away banks and set out on a journey to California to find a better life. However the journey breaks up the family, their dreams are not realized and their fortunes disappear. What promised to be the land of milk and honey turns to sour grapes. The hopes and dreams of a generation turned to wrath. Steinbeck opens up this catastrophe for public scrutiny.

    Read More

  • Comparative Essay on Harriet Beecher Stowe´s Uncle Tom´s Cabin and Charles Dicken´s Oliver Twist

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    The two classic books that I read were very inspiring and interesting. They are both widely known books that have impacted people’s lives and views on various subjects greatly. These two books that are known worldwide are Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Uncle Tom’s Cabin revolves mainly around the aspect of slavery and how slaves were treated unfairly. We learn about how slavery was once lawful in our country, the United States of America, and how our government punished people who helped fugitive slaves escape.

    Read More

  • James Baldwin's Fifth Avenue, Uptown

    492 Words  | 1 Pages

    Baldwin gives a vivid sketch of the depressing conditions he grew up on in Fifth Avenue, Uptown by using strong descriptive words. He makes use of such word choices in his beginning sentences when he reflects back to his house which is now replaced by housing projects and “one of those stunted city trees is snarling where our [his] doorway used to be” (Baldwin...

    Read More

  • John Steinbeck Outline

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    I. John Steinbeck used his personal experiences as a laborer to write many of his novels like Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath.

    Read More

  • Parrallels in the Life of John Steinbeck and the Characters in his Works

    2511 Words  | 6 Pages

    John Steinbeck was perhaps the best author of all time. He was the winner of a Nobel Prize, and among other accomplishments, Steinbeck published nineteen novels and made many movies during his lifetime. All of his experience and knowledge are shown through his novels. A reader can tell, just in reading a novel by Steinbeck, that he had been through a lot throughout his life. Also, Steinbeck worked very hard to accomplish everything that he did during his lifetime. Nothing came very easily to him, and he had to earn everything he owned. This helped him in his writing, because he was able to write about real people and real experiences. John Steinbeck got his inspiration from life experiences, people he knew, and places he had gone.

    Read More

  • The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn: Book Analysis

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    Growing up, humans get smarter, learn to find their place in their world, and discover their basis of beliefs. Those three things are met when a person looks towards physical, cultural, and geographical surroundings to shape their psychological or moral traits. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck did just that. He was shaped by his journey down the The Mississippi River, his good friend Jim, the crude Miss Watson and his father “Pap”, these surrounding aspects help illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole, developing Huck into the person he was at the end of the novel.

    Read More

  • Skill and Craftsmanship in the Works of Steinbeck

    1543 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony and The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck professes his admiration for the man who displays skill and craftsmanship in his work. A man who does his job exceedingly well is, by extension in Steinbeck's works, a hero who is satisfied in doing his best in affection for his craft - a direct contrast to the multitude of humans who are merely unsuccessful and unhappy dreamers.

    Read More

  • Fantasy and Reality Within Of Mice and Men and The Things They Carried by John Steinbeck

    1621 Words  | 4 Pages

    Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck) and The Things They Carried both contains events that trigger people to escape the reality of the moment into fantasy and show the psychological battles within. Escaping into a fantasy, you have the ability to change a horrific event into “happily ever after.”

    Read More

  • John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

    551 Words  | 2 Pages

    The stories, novels, films and photographs surrounding the Dust Bowl crisis and the Vietnam War have been marred with various issues about historical reconstructions. Whereas historical critics have raised questions about the real cause of migration of south westerners during the Dust Bowl crisis, their representatives have given conflicting accounts on the events surrounding the Odyssey. Steinbeck, in his book, The Grapes of Wrath, explains that the migration of farmers from Oklahoma was caused by the harsh drought that followed the Dust Bowl Odyssey (Davidson & Lytle, 2009a). On the other hand, critics argue that the findings are not based on statistics. According to historians, novelists like Steinbeck normally base their historical stories on exaggeration and should rely on facts and statistics. For example, the number of farmers who migrated into California is exaggerated. When James Gregory, a current historian, went through the Census Bureau statistics, he found out that only 43% of people living in Oklahoma were farmers during the Dust Bowl crisis. According to historical critics, other causes for the migration might have been the agricultural reorganization and mechanization, as portrayed by a tractor in The Grapes of Wrath.

    Read More

  • John Ernst Steinbeck II: A Brief Biography

    889 Words  | 2 Pages

    In American literature there have been or still are many good writers. John Steinbeck is one of those whose name is still towards the top of the list of great American authors. Steinbeck grew up during some tough times, he lived through the Great Depression, The Dust Bowl and World War II. These events only made him a stronger writer because of the horrendous outcome they had on America.

    Read More

  • The Evolution of John Steinbeck

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    In "The Grapes of Wrath", Steinbeck takes a great leap forward in his storytelling. His characters are better developed and more human. Steinbeck's development as a writer was linked to his growth as a person and his furthered capacity for understanding in others, particularly the disenfranchised. The process and struggle that ensued during the early years of his career were instrumental in his growth and are demonstrated in the development of his views on industrialization and it's effects on the working class.

    Read More

  • Cannery Row By John Steinbeck- Short Summary

    417 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Cannery Row, John Steinbeck describes the unholy community of 1920s Monterey, California. Cannery Row is a street that depends on canning sardines. It is where all the outcasts of society reside. Steinbeck himself, in the first sentence of the book, describes Cannery Row as "a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."

    Read More

More about Travels With Charley By John Steinbeck: An Analysis

Open Document