Pg. 767 (first page of part one) "Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. And last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay."
This differs from Jack Kerouac's perspective of a road trip. In Kerouac's novel, a road trip comes out of spontaneity, and Sal goes whereever the road takes him. He does not have a specific route that he takes and just catches rides with whoever comes along. In John Steinback's description, it seems like the journey is not spontaneous and includes some type of planning. From this quote, he shows that to take on a journey, one must plan ahead, knowing the general direction and paths to take.
The narrator has mentioned that people want to get "away from Here" in a couple of sentences. What does he mean when he says "Here"?
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I also noticed that Steinback's perspective and Kerouac's perspective on road trip were different. Like Jessica pointed out, Kerouac's road trip is a spontaneous one, unlike Steinback's road trip, which has a reason (to know about his country, since he is an American writer, writing about America), a planned and a very prepared one-he talks about Rocinante and all the things that he packed for this trip, even admitting he had too much.
ReplyDeleteAlso, unlike Sal, narrator takes a dog named Charley because he fear that he will become lonely.
Why does the narrator care so much about his boat Fayre Eleyne?
I found this interesting as well. A big chunk of the story is the nararrator actually preparing for his trip. In the beginning he opens by saying he had the urge to be somewhere else but people said that he would eventually grow out of it. He spends all of his time, waiting for this trip rather than being spontaneous and just going on the trip. He waits until after labor day, waiting for people to be off the roads, makes sure he has all the necessary items he will need, and takes a lot of time to take care of small details of this trip.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: I noticed the narrarator personifies alot of the things in this story; the boat, dog and truck. Why do you think he does this? Also, how do you think traveling with a companion changes a roadtrip?