Travels With Charley

Part 4 of Travels With Charley takes a very different direction than the previous sections. Instead of trying to puzzle out a huge array of topics affecting the American population as a whole, Steinbeck focuses on the unique issues of the South. He starts with Texas. Rather than giving a broad overview of the state through short anecdotes about various people, he specifically addresses his time among ultra-wealthy Texans while visiting his wife’s family for Thanksgiving. While some parts of the book have incited questions about their veracity because of how neatly Steinbeck’s experiences build toward his overall conclusions, the Thanksgiving visit is much less precisely packaged, which gives it a distinct air of authenticity. He does little analysis of his time with the Texans, instead giving a play-by-play account of the food, conversations, and leisure activities he experienced during his visit. He approaches the scene with great care, as if to avoid portraying relatives in a bad light, whereas in other parts of the book, he makes enormous assumptions about individuals based on minor interactions. As in his depiction of landscapes, this may be a result of familiarity. Most of the people Steinbeck talks to throughout the book are strangers, so he must fill in major gaps in their stories to draw meaningful content from them. Meanwhile, he these Texans are familiar, so even conversations that could paint a stereotypical picture of the rich—such the host’s daughter defending her right to own the foal of a mare her prize-winning horse accidentally impregnated—are wrapped in a layer of nuance that can only come from knowing a person well.

Steinbeck’s journey returns him to unknown territory when he leaves Texas and travels to New Orleans, hoping to see the fracas surrounding the integration of a local school. Racism becomes the narrative’s primary concern at this point, although Steinbeck points out that he knows little about the situation in the South, and his hometown had only one Black family. He says of his Southern friends, when they discuss the topic of race relations: “I have seen and felt them go into a room of experience into which I cannot enter.” (178). Despite his hesitation and lack of knowledge, he decides to enter the fray of racial tension in the most dramatic way possible—by joining a throng of white protestors as a young Black girl is ushered into her new school. Even though he read about the protests before arriving in New Orleans, the reality of the situation shocks him. In the passages before he visits the school, he tentatively skirts around making any direct statements about Southern racism, but the anger and hatred he sees from the white crowd turn his narrative in a somewhat different direction afterward. Previously, he saw the subject as an intellectual problem, engaging in discussions with friends about the concept of “separate but equal,” politely ignoring racial slurs involving Charley’s supposed resemblance to a Black man, and thinking that maybe he just couldn’t understand such things because he wasn’t a Southerner. After his visit to New Orleans, though, his mood turns to sadness and rage that something like racism could even exist, foregrounding the theme Fear and Acceptance of Change. These feelings are compounded by his experiences with the two Black hitchhikers and the angry young white man. As in many instances where his confusion overwhelms his analysis, he turns his attention to Charley, whom he knows has no concept of racism: “It would be difficult to explain to a dog the good and moral purpose of a thousand humans gathered to curse one tiny human. I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts” (195).

As he finishes his journey, which he says was over long before he actually got home, Steinbeck touches on the theme The Journey. He’s somewhat concerned that he didn’t discover any great truths about the US or its people. He also feels like he didn’t necessarily get to know the country any better. Especially after seeing the turmoil of the early 1960s South, he feels somewhat more out of touch with the lives of everyday Americans than he ever did before. As if underscoring his feeling of being metaphorically lost, in the closing scene, he gets physically lost in New York City just a few miles from home. As crowds of busy city dwellers rush around him, he can’t help but break out in maniacal laughter. Although his trip didn’t provide him with the basis for any groundbreaking proclamations about the American experience, he learned that the country is bigger and more complex than he ever imagined.