46 pages • 1 hour read
William Least Heat-MoonBlue Highways: A Journey into America
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “East by Southeast”
Heat-Moon is in North Carolina when he realizes, almost as an afterthought, that he is loosely tracing the route of his white ancestor, William Trogdon, a casualty of the American Revolutionary War. Heat-Moon decides to track down the final resting place of his long-deceased ancestor.
Near Franklinville in North Carolina—after a long struggle and something of a wild goose chase, and with the help of a local man named Noel Jones and what the author deems omens and mysterious driving forces—Heat-Moon arrives near Trogdon’s gravesite. Jones, though not educated in the classical sense, appears as something of a philosopher to Heat-Moon.
To reach the gravesite, Heat-Moon treks through dense, wild forest and fears he will be lost. He ultimately discovers that because of the impounding of Sandy Creek, Trogdon’s grave is underwater. Heat-Moon spends time at the site, deep in the backwoods, pondering and trying to imagine the details of Trogdon’s final moments. The chapter concludes with Heat-Moon dipping into the stream to wash up before proclaiming, “I, too, drank from the grave” (49).
Heat-Moon exits the woods without incident but is very tired and hungry from his excursion. Upon returning to Ghost Dancing, Heat-Moon is startled by movement outside the van: It’s a police officer who warns the author not to sleep where he is.
Heat-Moon continues through North Carolina to the Atlantic coast and the Outer Banks, where he meets with more locals and even lands a job loading seafood onto a truck. From the Banks, Heat-Moon returns inland and proceeds into South Carolina and inland Georgia, where he spends time with Trappist monks—one of whom, Patrick Duffy, Heat-Moon interviews at length, trying to ascertain why a man would choose such solitary religious asceticism.
Chapter 2 Analysis
As this chapter begins, it occurs to Heat-Moon that he is very loosely tracing the route of his white ancestor, William Trogdon. However, the author believes that it is not his own efforts that lead him to the gravesite; rather, he says, he is guided there by fate. As he stands at the brink of the dense, remote forest, Heat-Moon says, “Common sense said to turn back, but the old sense in the blood was stronger” (48). His language at times turns to the mystical, and especially in moments like these, the narration suggests a providential guiding force.
When Heat-Moon finally discovers the gravesite and realizes that it is now underwater due to human engineering of the stream, he bathes and drinks from the water and says that he’s drinking from the grave. This again harkens back to the idea of permanence; he acknowledges the lastingness of William Trogdon’s spirit.
Heat-Moon tends to treat the many figures with respect and dignity. He also tends to sketch them into teacher-like characters—people who, by their life experience, are wise, articulate, and highly willing to pass along their knowledge to an equally willing listener. This is another recurring theme in the book: the idea that Heat-Moon will receive a different kind of education by those who otherwise might not be seen as educators. In this chapter, Heat-Moon learns a lot from two widely different people. There’s Noel Jones, who gives directions to Trogdon’s gravesite and who drops such aphorisms as “junk’s a modrun invention” (47). There are also the Trappist monks whose wisdom is a bit more conventional. While Jones’s comments are those of a simple man, the simplicity is what impresses Heat-Moon, as does the consecrated solitude and asceticism of the monks. It is unclear if, as his journey begins, Heat-Moon believes simplicity is a virtue. The author doesn’t specify whether these interactions reaffirm an old belief or teach him something new—but subsequent chapters highlight the idea of simplicity as a virtue.
Finally, when Heat-Moon visits the Star Fort at the Ninety-Six National Historic Site, he has followed the legendary Cherokee Path and seems mildly impressed by the Park Service’s restoration of the historic site, commenting, “Some of the work the government’s done here is good” (75).
There are two significant points here: First, many of the roads Heat-Moon drives either directly follow routes that had a long history prior to being paved for automobiles; second, Heat-Moon’s favorable evaluation of the Park Service’s conservation indicates that he’s learning a balanced approach to historical preservation and modernity. The Star Fort is such an example.
