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

contribute to the seemingly endless and, more importantly, destructive banter that characterized the Cold War. Where the pervading restlessness that Steinbeck encounters can be explained in terms of the intra-imperialistic agenda in place during the Cold War, by no means does he offer a remedy to this malaise that operates within the restrictive confines of the analytical binary. Like the New Americanists, Steinbeck seeks alternative "readings" of his "text": America. Nowhere does he say that the desire to be anywhere but "Here" could be ameliorated by hating the communists more or celebrating the virtue of individualism and the negative freedom that it induces beyond what has already been done. Instead, Steinbeck intends through his unassuming approach to documenting the events of his trip that the reader "accept" the symptom as simply a matter of truth, then labor toward an "understanding" of that truth well outside of the collective binary mindset that inspired that symptom in the first place. For Steinbeck, the "dissensus" had always been one that had no place for rules that were dictated by the capitalist ethic. I will not detract from the thrust of this essay by mapping Steinbeck's "fam'bly of man" principle that was most articulately expressed in The Grapes of Wrath, but I will say that this principle has historically been set against the backdrop of the potential evils of a money-obsessed society in order to show that there is a sanctuary when the very system created to serve society labors toward disorder, fragmentation, and distrust among individuals. Principle and "dissensus" being one, Steinbeck receives a number of opportunities to test his principle in a real world setting. As Steinbeck "sat secure in the silence" (TWC 109) by a lake in northern Michigan, he is confronted by a young man who, it soon becomes apparent, is a steward to the land on which Steinbeck and Charley had stopped. Of particular interest is how Steinbeck handles a man whose hostile attitude is sanctioned by laws that spur social separation by signifying what is "mine" from what is "yours." The man is the first to speak: "Don't you know this land is posted? This is private property." Normally his tone would have sparked a tinder in me. I would have flared an ugliness of anger and he would then have been able to evict me with pleasure and good conscience. We might have edged into a 32