Travels With Charley John Steinbeck Analysis

In Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck, him and his dog Charley travel together through America. A major idea in this book is race and the problems it causes for Americans. This book takes place in the early 1960s, a time when race relations were still fragile and civil rights were buzzing around America. Steinbeck not only hears racist things being thrown around but also sees some pretty ugly things relating to discrimination and white and black relations. He hears these things as he travels across America and in particular, when he travels through the South. In the last three chapters he talks about traveling from Texas to Louisiana. He dreads going into the South for he will be immersed in this racism. In the climax of his story there …show more content…
He is not happy about the cities or the work ethic, he even complains of pollution. Steinbeck makes commentary on a great deal of what he believes America is lacking. But, one thing Steinbeck does is he shows the American national identity. He shows it as something unparallel to anything in the world, nothing he has ever seen on his travels across the globe, because in essence, “America is a land of wanderers all merging together to become a new nation” (Steinbeck 80). He met so many different people along his journey, all with a different life and path and perspective and that is what being an american is about. It's a mash up of different cultures and people into one land. As he tried to understand his country, and the american people, he began to grow and figure out why he felt how he did about many things in his life and around him. He also developed a greater appreciation and love of his own home, its comforts. And that's what being an american is, that comfort of knowing you have a place to go back to. He up and left and found himself in others and in the places he went. But no matter how far he went he knew he had a place to go back to. This is the American identity, the ability to be free and do your own thing but having a place to be once your done. The mashing of cultures and personalities to create something uniquely American. Although Steinbeck critics America profusely, he still is able to see

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