Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)
Studies - Jason M. Dew: Cold War Reflections in Travels with Charley: Steinbeck's New Americanist Evaluation of Intra-Imperialist America
thinking" (180), meaning, in the context of Cold War trends, that Steinbeck gathers and presents the details of his journey in a critical stance removed from intra-imperialistic expectation hoping that his audience can accept and understand truths unclouded by the predominant ideological hegemony. The intended nature of his message deserves mention because it is characteristically removed from teleologies —namely that teleology informed by intraimperialism —that would restrict alternative analyses from the established norm. The similarity between Steinbeck and the New Americanists is evident. Although Steinbeck's deviance is one that had been practiced since his salad days with friend and mentor Ed Ricketts, "acceptance-understanding" via non-teleological thinking especially equips Steinbeck on his mission to get at the naked, unhindered core of the American identity. Described as a "lost soul looking for a home among the shifting tide pools of American culture" (Champney, "Search" 372), Steinbeck sets out to accomplish, in general, a single task. Discovering that he "did not know my own country," the aging Argonaut outfitted a pickup truck aptly named Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse with "a little house built like the cabin of a small boat" (TWC 5-6) and, with canine co-pilot Charley in company, traversed by-ways and highways in pursuit of a new familiarity with his country and its people. When Steinbeck is about to embark on his expedition, he notes a telling detail that speaks to the effects of an easy-going lifestyle on a people gone too complacent and too lax for their own good: I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation —a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every state I visited. Nearly every American hungers to move. (TWC 10) Steinbeck's observation should not be taken in passing. The deeper complexities of this desire to go beg an explanation of a culture that would foster such a response to begin with. This is to suggest that the "is" observation Steinbeck makes largely relates to the anxiety and general insecurity exacerbated by Cold War intra-imperialism and, as 28
