"The Wayward Bus"

Paper Summary:

This essay focuses on the characters of Nora and Juan in John Steinbeck's novel, "The Wayward Bus", to illustrate how the novel signifies the human capacity to dream and attempt to realize those dreams until reality sets in and we learn that the dream cannot be realized.

From the Paper:

"Norma sees her work in the diner as her connection with the glorified Hollywood. This also represents the unrealistic nature of youthful dreaming. The reality of Hollywood is of course far removed from such elevated dreams. This is further shown in the fact that Norma cannot take her dream any further than the flies. She is completely naive of the sexual aspect of life, and feels that Gable would disapprove of it as she does. This idealistic dream is later replaced onto Camilla, the beautiful blonde. With Camilla's appearance, Norma attaches herself to the older girl as if she is an older sister. Camilla initially willingly plays the role and helps Norma with her hair and her makeup. She also coaches the younger girl in how to deal with men. While eating out of Camilla's hand like a willing servant, Norma further demonstrates her naive dreaming nature when Camilla tells obvious lies. She for example tells the group that she is a dental assistant, which everybody but Norma knows is not true. But Camilla is more real than Clark Gable and in her Norma sees the chance to realize her dreams."

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