America the home of the brave and the land of the free right? In the novel, "Travels with Charley: in Search of America", John Steinbeck traveled around America with his dog Charley and met many people While trying to capture the essence of America; Steinbeck finds that there is no single American essence. Three people Steinbeck met were a yokel father, a wise man named Ci Git, and an African American student who are all parts of America, but because they are so different, they don't describe it as a whole.
Robbie's father is a hunting, fishing, drinking yokel. This man represents the redneck and ignorant categories of America by being a hunting, drinking redneck who doesn't appreciate his son. “Yes, but I am more of an orphan. All he likes is fishing and
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This person and his whole race are being segregated and he fits the brilliant people that want to change the future. Steinbeck states, "We discussed the sit-ins. He had taken part in them, and in the bus boycott. I told him what I had seen in New Orleans. He had been there. He had expected what I was shocked at" (Steinbeck 206). This shows the student’s knowledge and expectance because he had already expected what he would see at New Orleans based on his knowledge of segregation. Also because the student is a Negro, he can already predict what would happen being a Negro attending a white school. The student was also very, as he himself states, “selfish” about change when he says, “I know all that. I’ve studied it. The gains are drops of water and time is passing. I want it faster; I want action-action now” (Steinbeck 206). The student lives in the future because he doesn't care about the past; he is alive in the present, but thinks of the future. He wants change now, so he fits the category of changers that actually do things to get the change they want. Of the many people in America, he is unique like the