John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley Essay

Steinbeck travelled America and designed a view of society of 1960s’ throughout Travels with Charley

As Chaplin’s Tramp roamed the world with the pleasure of wanderlust deep-rooted in his mind, returning on the road after every stop all the time, similarly John Steinbeck returned home from his European journeys with the intentions to criss-cross his homeland to get to know the nature of the people the country was settled by. Steinbeck felt he lost the connection with the country and the people he wrote about, and most of all it was only his mere nature to wander, as he mentioned in the beginning of the book. The story is based on Steinbeck’s experience with people he met and it matures throughout the book as his view changes gradually. The fact that Travels with Charley reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list just a few months after its release in 1962, showed that society actually related with this topic to great extent. However, another later discovered fact is that he made up some, or most of the story.
Steinbeck goes from Maine where he sort of loved the nation and people he met, to Louisiana and sheer hate of “Cheerleaders”. He is sick about racism. After-war struggle of American Negros to reach equality of rights is pictured excellently. His feelings against Negros were not usual for that time. When he travelled through California, he remembered how he grew up with Negro friends in Salinas, his birthplace and town he spent his youth in. He described them as some of the best, hardest working people he ever met. It is certainly true that right this book was released in 1962, after more than two years from the actual trip, it shakes America. However, it certainly shakes it in a good way, because it becomes #1 and people actually read it. This is why this book was a mileage and it helped people to cross their mind and their feelings about Negros at that