Struggle for existence incidents in the pearl john steinbeck

STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE INCIDENTS IN THE PEARL JOHN STEINBECK FULL

Despite these tests, optimism survives to varying degrees. It was a question of dignity.вЂќ 4 During the course of each of these writerвЂ™s journeys, this optimism turns into a critique of some aspect of America that doesnвЂ™t live up to the idealistic impulse. He could quit trying to get out of the way of life.

A man who couldnвЂ™t make things go right could at least go. Steinbeck, older than the other two, hopes to reclaim his masculinity and knowledge of America by setting out across the country in his camper truck, Rocinante: вЂњI determined to look again, to try to rediscover this monster land.вЂќ 3 And William Least Heat-Moon, having lost his wife and his job, heads out on his cross-country trip in the hope of finding a new purpose and direction in life and to reclaim his self-worth: вЂњI got the idea instead. I wanted to embrace it, to feel that the old wounds were really healed, and set out for the unknown with a blessing on my lips.вЂќ 1 KerouacвЂ™s Sal Paradise hopefully, but naively, thinks вЂњSomewhere along the line I knew thereвЂ™d be girls, visions, everything somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to meвЂќ 2 - the dreams of many a college-aged young man. I didnвЂ™t want to run away from it, as I had originally. Disappointed at having to leave Europe because of the beginning of World War II and remembering his previous experiences in America, Miller begins The Air-Conditioned Nightmare with trying to make the best of a bad situation: вЂњI wanted to have a last look at my country and leave it with a good taste in my mouth. McCarthy takes aspects of the road narrative such as idealism, the idea of the road itself, the anxiety with materialism and consumerism, the engagement with the environment, and the development of a cautious optimism, and reexamines them in a post-apocalyptic world that appears to hold little hope for individuals and the country, resulting in an extreme critique and a reevaluation of hope.Д®ach of these road narratives begins with optimistic impulses to see the country, find self, or restart a stalled life, impulses fueled by ideals created from the writersвЂ™s pasts, literature, history, or myth. In doing so, he challenges a genre rooted in self-discovery - finding self and country - with a hellish journey of survival and death. McCarthy takes the road narrative past its nonfiction and fictional roots into speculative fiction, though based on an idea of AmericaвЂ™s projected decline in the last half of the twentieth century. The blackened landscape emerges as the fictional culmination of years of waste - a country that has been destroyed most likely, though never stated, by the excesses of its inhabitants and the disastrous decisions of its leaders.

STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE INCIDENTS IN THE PEARL JOHN STEINBECK FULL

The Road follows an unnamed man and his son as they walk (pushing an old grocery cart full of supplies) toward the coast through an America burnt and ravaged by an unknown event. By engaging in harsh critique, the novel subverts conventions of the road narrative and, by nature of its post-apocalyptic setting, questions whether the genre has died. In fact, the novel becomes perhaps the most damning condemnation of America that issues from a road narrative. While Cormac McCarthyвЂ™s post-apocalyptic novel The Road (2006) would seem outside of this tradition (as dystopian fiction), it fits squarely within the framework of the American road narrative as cultural critique. The American road narrative, then, occupies a liminal space between disappointment and cautious hope. Even though each of these writers harshly critiques problems in the US, each also retains a measure of optimism in AmericaвЂ™s potential to change. representative narratives like Henry MillerвЂ™s The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Jack KerouacвЂ™s On the Road, John SteinbeckвЂ™s Travels with Charley, and William Least Heat-MoonвЂ™s Blue Highways all begin with idealistic visions about the country, but each document an America that, disconcertingly, gets worse. These increasingly critical visions of America occur when the reality of the country does not match any ideal visions of the country created by the travelers. They challenged the conformity that clashed with more optimistic impulses behind the journeys, such as discovering self and reveling in the freedom of the road. Yet as the century progressed, road narratives increasingly criticized problems in the country like rampant materialism and commercialization. The twentieth century American road narrative began as an idealistic enterprise that examined the possibility and hope in America.

Struggle for existence incidents in the pearl john steinbeck