In Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is a child who never really seems to fit in anywhere he stays. He is extremely uncom

When examining the meaning of the road in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, we see a very different analogy of the relationship between the home and the road. Instead of not having a place where they fit in before their journey, the Joad family knows exactly where they belong in life. Coming from a long generation of Oklahoma farmers, the Joads would have been perfectly content to remain in their farmhouse growing crops. As fate would have it though, the depression hits along with a devastating drought in the Dust Bowl, and the family must leave their land in search of work. Along the way the Joads encounter very little other than hardship. Grandpa and Grandma Joad pass away, offers of work turn up empty, they are forced to live in bad conditions, and Tom gets in trouble with the law more than once. Furthermore, every time the family finds a place to stay, some situation forces them to move on. At the end of the novel they are forced to keep traveling but do not want to like Huck does. They stay on the road only to find a new home and work so that they can support themselves. For the Joads, the road is not a place of happiness and freedom, but rather a trial of hardships. So, based on the different situations preceding the road and the separate reasons Huck and Jim and the Joads took to the road, the metaphor of the road itself takes on a completely different connotation.

Yet another view of the road takes shape in the movie Thelma and Louise. Although the ladies both seem to have a place in their respective homes at the onset of the movie, it becomes clear early enough that they both lack something in their lives. Both of the ladies lead lives in which they are oppressed in one form or another. Thelma’s husband Dale, even though he does not physically abuse her, cares more for his job and watching sports than he does for her, yet does not allow her to do any of the things she really wants to do. Louise works as a waitress in a restaurant under a male supervisor, a job that has no true potential to go anywhere. On top of this, she has a failing relationship with her boyfriend and constantly questions how much he really cares for her. On the other hand, when they embark on their own adventurous road trip, the girls loosen up and let their inhibitions run away with them. When a man tries to rape Thelma outside a bar, Louise kills her assailant with a handgun. This episode is a breaking point in the women’s lives. For so long they have lived with the oppression that the men in their lives have placed upon them, but the two won’t stand for it any more. For the rest of the movie they take their pent up aggressions out on nearly every male who disrespects them

Some topics in this essay:
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