ハイウェイの記憶 : ルート66のアメリカ

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the harsh reality laid on the reverse side of the American dream that John Steinbeck vividly described in The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Steinbeck obviously underscores that the United States, which is the land of the American dream, has taken the wrong route and put unfortunate people like the Dust Bowl migrants in a cruel predicament. Has this country rightly come back to the path which it was supposed to take from the outset as the promised land, or is it still taking the wrong course even now? Route 66, which the protagonist Tom Joad and his family take in the novel, still winds through people’s fantasies today even after it was officially removed from the United States Highway System in 1985. Why are people still fascinated with this old highway? What has this highway witnessed about American history? Running along this highway with the Joad family, and with Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen who sing for oppressed people, I will examine the present state of the country by analyzing Jessica Bruder’s Nomadland (2017) to see how things have changed since the 1930s. Is the American dream still alive? Is California still a promised land for American people? What lessons have been learned from the Dust Bowl, which dispossessed the Joad family? Route 66 has been a witness to so many aspects of American history. The highway itself carries its own memories while continuing to capture the imagination of so many others even today.